Will harness Ghaggar water, sites marked for reservoirs: Punjab minister Goyal

Punjab Water Resources Minister Barinder Kumar Goyal on Monday told the Assembly that his government has identified several sites to construct reservoirs to store flood waters of the rain-fed Ghaggar as the swollen river submerges thousands of acres every monsoon.

The minister, however, did not disclose the exact number of such sites, only mentioning about 20-acre land earmarked for the purpose in Chando village of Sangrur, the home district of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

The reply came in response to apprehensions of flooding expressed by Dera Bassi legislator Kulijt Singh Randhawa and Ghanaur MLA Gurlal Ghanaur.

The swollen Ghaggar wreaks havoc in several villages of Mohali, Patiala, Mansa and Sangrur districts every year due to breaches in its embankments.

Goyal said the Sangrur site would be 40-foot-deep and it would be connected to water channels so that the stored water could be used for irrigation and groundwater recharge.

Earlier in the day, the issue of floods due to swollen Ghaggar, Beas and Sutlej after heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh was raised by Independent Sultanpur Lodhi legislator Rana Inder Partap through a call attention notice.

The MLA said he had identified 12 to 15 critical points along the Beas between Harike and Dhilwan where the embankments were alarmingly weak and highly susceptible to breaches. He claimed that despite several reminders, no concrete step had been taken to fix the problem.

‘No flood-like situation’

Replying to it, the minister said there was “no flood-like situation” in the state as of now as the water levels in Bhakra, Ranjit Sagar and Pong dams were much below the danger mark.

He said the current water level at Bhakra Dam stood at 1,590.48 ft compared with 1,614.89 ft on July 10, 2023, when floods were witnessed. Similarly, the water levels at Pong and Ranjit Sagar dams stood at 1,325.48 ft and 505.41 metres, respectively, according to the reply furnished by Goyal.

Minister hits out at Haryana, Rajasthan

Goyal also hit out at Haryana and Rajasthan for “double standards” over the sharing of river waters. “When in need of water, they go an extra mile to seek excess supply but during monsoon, they refused to take extra water from swollen rivers, leaving Punjab residents to bear the brunt of the monsoon fury,” he said.