Monsoon a month away, cleaning of drains yet to begin

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, May 27

The monsoon is just about a month away, but the anti-waterlogging works, like de-silting and cleaning of drains, are yet to begin in Muktsar district. Notably, this district has suffered huge financial losses due to rains in the past few years. Yet, the authorities have not swung into action so far.

The farmers now fear that if the state government did not de-silt the drains timely, they might have to face a 2013-like situation, when some villages had remained waterlogged for almost a month and the suffered a loss of about Rs 60 crore.

The farmers said continuous rains for three days are enough to wreak havoc in the district.

Harjit Singh, a farmer of Gurusar village, said, “In my village and some neighbouring ones, the drains are choked because of the wild growth. If it rains heavily, there will be no drainage system in place, resulting into a flood-like situation and causing massive loss to the recently sown cotton crop. The Irrigation Department should take timely steps to save the farmers.”

Some other farmers said not just the link drains, even the major drains were yet to be cleaned. “These drains are our lifelines. If these are not cleaned timely, we may suffer huge losses again,” they said.

On this, Dalbir Singh, Superintending Engineer, Irrigation Department (Drainage wing), Gidderbaha, said, “We are hopeful of starting the de-silting and cleaning work of drains in some parts of Fazilka, Muktsar and Bathinda districts next week. This exercise will take approximately Rs 5 crore.”

Meanwhile, some farmers said the department should increase the budget for this work.