Punjab Government has decided to appoint the Nodal Officers to monitor the drainage of water from the fields of Fazilka and Muktsar districts. The State Water Resources Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, who along with Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar, and Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar visited the waterlogged areas of Fazilka and Sri Muktsar Sahib districts on Wednesday to take the stock of the situation, directed the officials to immediately press the pumps in service to drain out water from fields to ensure timely sowing of next crop.
Sarkaria also instructed the officials to ensure that inhabited areas do not get waterlogged, while underlining the need to bring out comprehensive projects to find a permanent solution to the water logging problem. Revenue Minister Kangar said that Punjab Government has ordered special Girdawari to assess the crop loss due to waterlogging caused due to heavy rain in the area.
Interacting with those whose crops were damaged, the Cabinet Ministers assured the farmers of all possible help and also directed officials to assess crop loss of every affected farmer at the earliest.
Jakhar said that this catastrophe has been caused because of unplanned projects of the last SAD-BJP Government. “Farmers are suffering at the hand of faulty drains constructed during SAD regime. The Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government would bring an adequate plan to solve this problem once for all,” he added. “Then Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and I had called on then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in 2014, who had sanctioned a Rs 2,246 crore project to sort out the problem of faulty drains but SAD Government did not give any detail of this amount and waterlogging problem still exists,” said Jakhar.
“If SAD Government utilized this amount in a proper manner, these farmers would not have been suffering today,” Jakhar added.