13,471 closed water courses restored to provide water to farmers

Published on: 03 Jul 2023 at 04:41 PM

Published by: thefactnews

Chandigarh, July 3

In a dream come true, the farmers of the state got canal water after decades on the directions of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to provide the same to them.

For the first time in their lives, the new generation of farmers saw nature’s bounty irrigating their fields in the form of canal water It was stated by Water Resources Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer during a press conference at Punjab Bhawan here today.

Meet Hayer lauded all the officers and employees of his department for the historic achievement and said that strengthening the canal water network is the main need of the hour to save the agriculture and groundwater of the state.

He said that whereas the farmers are getting canal water for the first time, the same was provided to cotton belt farmers during sowing season on their demand.

Meet Hayer further said that out of 15741 water courses closed in the state due to the non-availability of canal water for the last several decades, 13471 water courses were restored by the Water Resources Department during the last two and a half months.

Now, out of a total of 47000 water courses in Punjab, only 2270 remain to be restored, regarding which the work is also going on a war footing.

To restore the water courses, the government issued a notification and they were given government status instead of community water courses. Apart from this, the condition of repairing the water courses was abolished only after 25 years.

The Water Resources Minister said that the department has restored these closed water courses at a cost of Rs. 200 Crore through MGNREGA. Similarly, unutilized funds were also used. More than 20 percent of the canals in Punjab are running beyond their capacity due to which sufficient water is also reaching the tails.

The department also increased the capacity of BML, BDC and UBDC. He said that they are continuously getting the canals inspected by deploying Patwari to XENs of the department to ensure that canal water reaches the farmers.