Taking stock of the progress made till date in campaign pertaining to the cleaning of ponds across the State, Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Friday instructed the departmental officers to ensure maximum participation of the people in the campaign.
“The desired results can only be achieved in the campaign if masses living in rural belts take to this work as their own,” said Bajwa while addressing the departmental officers via video conferencing.
Bajwa said that cleaning ponds in each village through desilting mode every year is necessary because this activity results in rain water being absorbed in the earth thus leading to the relative ease in keeping its level higher.
Pointing that Punjab today faces the biggest challenge in the form of stemming the trend of depleting water level beneath the earth, the Minister directed the officers to exhort the people living in the rural areas to go for restricted use of water.
Bajwa urged the officers to strive in the direction of implementing the Seechewal model in at least five villages of each block so as to inspire the inhabitants of the other villages also to opt for this model.
He also expressed confidence that the people living in the rural areas can work wonders in this regard, they just need a little bit of encouragement.
Exhorting the field officers to implement this campaign more effectively from the next year onwards, Bajwa asked them to send detailed report along with their suggestions as well as implications encountered.
Earlier, the Department’s Finance Secretary, giving block-wise detailed information, said that out of the total 13,124 villages of the state, the work of cleaning up the ponds of 6,399 villages is going on war footing and out of these, ponds of 2699 villages have been cleaned of water while ponds in 926 villages have been cleared of silt.
Mission Tandarust Punjab’s director Kahan Singh Pannu exhorted the officers to take the campaign to its logical conclusion within a fortnight.
He added that while most of the officers are working with full dedication in this regard, there have also been some examples of laxity cropping up which can derail the campaign. He also divulged that during these three holidays, he would tour all the districts of the State and take stock of the situation on ground.