With the Punjab Government planning to sell electricity to Pakistan, it is also mulling to “tap” the State’s water resources, flowing into the neighbouring country, to meet its irrigation requirements.
Towards the same, the state Irrigation and Power Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Wednesday asked the Irrigation Department to make a consolidated report on the water flowing to Pakistan from the State.
Rana Gurjeet, during a review meeting with the Irrigation Department, also issued instructions to make a strategy to tap these resources for meeting irrigation requirements of the state.
Stressing on the need of strengthening mechanism to tap water flowing to Pakistan, the Minister said that Punjab government would make its best efforts to make optimal utilization of this water to meet irrigation and other water requirements of the state.
He also reviewed the status of River Management and Border Area Activity (RMBA) and other significant projects of the Department’s drainage wing.
Reviewing the cleaning and desilting of drains, Irrigation Minister asked the Chief Engineer (Drainage) AK Bansal to make a report on the use of herbicides like glysophate to check the growth of hyacinths in the drains.
He also instructed Department to make it sure that the use of herbicides should not affect the aquatic life. He also stressed on the use of MGNREGA scheme to perform the effective cleanliness of all the drains.
Stressing on the need of bringing transparency in the Department, Irrigation Minister said that internal vigilance wing of the department would be strengthened to keep a regular check on its working.
He instructed all the wings of the Department to make Whatsapp groups and include him and senior officials of the department in these groups to maintain perfect coordination and quality output of all wings.
“I will regularly monitor these groups to access the progress of ongoing projects besides keeping a tab on the working of each official,” he added.
The Minister also directed department officials to explore the possibilities of retaining and restoring heritage value of rest houses and other properties to develop them as a source of revenue for the department. Minister said that he would be in direct touch with the officials of the department besides visiting each SE office in coming months.
He asked them to maintain attendance at their offices and keep their status report in hand.