Defunct canal hits agricultural production in Tehri villages

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, December 27

Agricultural production has badly affected at Raunad, Ramoli, Piplogi, Syalgi and Bhainga villages in Tehri district due to the lack of proper irrigation facilities.

Farmers from these villages are totally dependent on a canal in the Pratap Nagar block of Tehri district, which has been lying defunct for the last five years.

They rued that no public representative or government official ever visited the site and took an initiative to get the canal repaired, leaving them at the mercy of the rain god.

Rajeshwar Painuly, chief coordinator of the Dobra Chanti Pul Sangarsh Samiiti, who is running a programme titled “Sujhav Aapka Prayas Hamara” after hearing the woes of the farmers in the region said it is shameful that farmers are still struggling for the water to irrigate their farmland in the region.

He said the agriculture produce would suffer irreparable damage if the farmers did not receive the water for irrigation.

He said the demand of Thorki villagers to declare their village as separate revenue village was also lying pending before the government. He said villagers mainly from the backward castes had not received their BPL card yet. Painuly alleged that the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC) was also not interested to work in these villages under the CSR programme that had been affected adversely due to delay in construction work on the Dobra Chanti Bridge over Tehri dam lake. He said the THDC was not interested in giving a few chairs to the schoolchildren due to biased attitude.

Painuly said villagers from the region were being harassed to pay inflated bills and the electricity department officials were threatening to cut their connections if they did not pay the bills. He demanded that officials should first rectify the bills and ask for the payment later on.

He said villagers basic demands were not being met and public representatives of the region were responsible for such condition. When contacted, officials attributed the absence of budget as the main reason for the various pending projects.