Abohar: Farmers rue delay in cleaning of canals

Abohar, February 3

The hopes of a bumper harvest that farmers in this area had pinned in December may be shattered as the Water Resources Department has not yet been able to start the prescribed work to clean and repair the Abohar branch canal and the Malukpura distributary. Both of these recieve water from the Sirhind feeder.

A group of farmers and orchard owners, led by MLA Sandeep Jakhar, have visited headworks in Sarawan village from where these emanate. They said that due to the neglect of the department, the work of cleaning the canal has not yet started and it is a matter of great concern. In this context, they had met the Superintending Engineer of the Department, Hardeep Singh Mehndiratta, and had requested him to get the work completed by February 15 as water for irrigation was paramount after this.

The legislator claimed that the officials had assured them that they would follow the suggested schedule but the same proved to be just hollow claims.

The department had fixed the programme of canal closure in the first week of December for cleaning and lining of Abohar branch canal and had floated the tenders, but it was postponed to January 10, and still it has not been processed. This may prove disastrous for the farmers as well as for the government since wheat and fruit production would be hit.

According to farmers, the work of lining the Sirhind feeder canal was also in not making any progress. Due to substandard work last year the Sirhind feeder as well as the Rajasthan feeder were adversely affected and thousands of farmers could not be provided with canal water for irrigation according to their turn.