Faridkot
As the Canal department Ferozepur has written a letter to the convener of the Jal Jiwan Bachao(JJB) Morcha to attend a meeting on October 18th at the office of the deputy commissioner Faridkot, the Morcha called that it is a sheer violation of the assurance given to them about 18 months back.
It is pertinent to mention that the work of relining of Rajasthan and Sirhind canal had started some time ago to stop the water logging adjoining to the area of both the cannibals on a war footage.
Under this project, both the canals had to be relined by laying a particular layer of concrete so that there could be no leaching of water from the canals.
But the residents of Faridkot town, the only town which touches the canals, were against it.
They demanded that a stretch of Sirhind canal between Bholuwala bridge and Machaki Mal Singh wala bridge be relined with bricks only.No concrete should be there that stops even drops of water going into soil.
They had contended that this area was not affected by waterlogging and concrete relining of the canal would lead to the further depletion of sub soil water.
“First of all, there is a shortage of drinking water. If the Sirhind canal is relined with concrete, the sub soil water go drastically low and most of the hand pumps, on which most people rely for drinking water, would stop pumping out water,” said Sandeep Arora, a member of JJB morcha and an activist of Society for Ecological and Environmental Resources(SEER).
“Secondly, about ten years ago, the canals were deserted without any greery. The environmental lovers have during all these years planted about 10000 saplings which are now full grown trees and shrubs. As the relining would be done using heavy machinery, all these greery would be ruined,” said Sandeep.
Thus, many like minded people from various social and farmers unions had protested against it under the banner of Jal Jiwan Bachao Morcha about two years back.
Due to the protest, the district administration had allegedly given the protesters a written assurance that there would be no concrete relining as per their demands.
But now the canal department has mentioned in the letter that the work needs to be completed by November 2024 and called a meeting of the JJB at the office of the deputy commissioner Faridkot.
The protesters said that they would not let it happen and if any steps are taken towards this direction by the department, they would again resume their protest.