Sriganganagar farmers protest as PM Modi visits Rajasthan

Abohar, August 25

A protest was organised by senior representatives of farmers’ organisations in Sriganganagar, which was known as the ‘Punjab of Rajasthan’, on Sunday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the state to participate in a function on the Platinum Jubilee of the Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur. They burned PM Modi’s effigy during the dharna too.

Farmers’ leaders gathered at Maharaja Ganga Singh Chowk and shouted slogans against the Prime Minister. They said the PM, during the election campaign, had announced that canal water would not be allowed to go to Pakistan. However, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (KSS) spokesperson Subhash Sehgal claimed that on average, in the current year, 4,500 cusecs of water was allowed to go to the neighbouring country through Kasur from the Ferozepur headworks each day. On the other hand, farmers in Sriganganagar and Fazilka districts were given canal water on rotation and crops missed several turns in irrigating the fields.

The KSS district president, Amar Singh Bishnoi, said apart from the NDA government at the centre, the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab and the BJP government in Rajasthan were also responsible for the poor state of farmers. He said the AAP chief, Arvind Kejriwal and CM Bhagwant Mann had, on June 18 last year, at a rally in Sriganganagar, promised a moon to farmers of Sriganganagar; however, it proved to be false.

Bishnoi said the Rajasthan Government, in February 2022, had approved Rs 200 crore for the reconstruction of the Ferozepur feeder canal, which emanates from the Harike barrage. A survey indicated that the lining of the feeder canal had collapsed at several places. The feeder canal has been running below its capacity to carry 6,000 cusecs of water. Bishnoi added that the Punjab Government has not prepared the detailed project report (DPR) to reconstruct the feeder canal that was constructed in 1959 and has outlived its life of 50 years so far.

Maninder Singh Mann of the Kisan Army said hundreds of people were suffering from cancer, for which the medicine experts blamed canal water contamination in Punjab; however, the state government has not woken up from its deep slumber despite reprimands by the National Green Tribunal.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha district chief, Sandeep Singh, said the Punjab government had failed to check the theft of water in the Gang Canal even when Rajasthan farmers had caught many people red-handed in Punjab.