Farmers want Gang canal bed rebuilt during April closure

Raj Sadosh

Abohar, October 23

Even as irrigation officials of Punjab and Rajasthan had resolved to take up the joint inspection of the Gang (Bikaner) canal in a couple of days, farmers of both states, on Sunday, decided to fight the canal water crisis jointly.

Kisan Sangharsh Samiti delegation headed by spokesman Subhash Sehgal on Sunday visited Khuikhera, Rohrianwali, Shajrana, Khunja and Singhpura villages and held discussions with sarpanches Prem and members of various panchayats.

Speaking to The Tribune here this evening, they said about 35,000 acres of land in more than 25 villages in the Fazilka-Abohar area had been affected by waterlogging that was caused due to the seepage of water through pressure release valves which were fixed on the bed of the Gang canal during its reconstruction in 1997. Most of the affected villages were located between RD 202 to RD 311 of the canal. The floor bed of Gang canal is 8-10 feet higher than the level of agricultural land in these villages. The Punjab government had confessed that 350 tube well connections had been released on the banks of the canal. These were mostly installed on the land owned by Rajasthan. Due to seepage/leakage in the transit area, Rajasthan was losing 550 cusecs of water as per the measurement report issued at the Mallan headworks in Ferozepur and Khakha headworks in Sriganganagar. This had affected the canal irrigation over 3 lakh acres of land in Sriganganagar, they said. Some of the sub-canals were supplied water only twice or thrice a week.

Maghar Singh, a farmer in Shajrana village, said he and his relatives owned 120 acres of land but the same was not worth cultivation now.

The farmers said wild shrubs had not been removed from path on both sides of the Gang canal. The Punjab Government had informed the Rajasthan Government that the canal would be cleaned during a month-long closure in April next year.

The farmers questioned how the material would be transported when the path is damaged or blocked by shrubs. The farmers demanded the reconstruction of the floor bed of gang canal.