Thousands of acres of land in 16 villages of neighbouring Nangal and Anandpur Sahib were marooned today following a breach in the ‘bundh’ on the Sutlej bank at Lodhipur village. No loss of human life has been reported.
The local administration has attributed the floods to the sudden rise in the water level in the Swan, a tributary of the Sutlej that originates in Una, Himachal Pradesh. The river merges into the Sutlej at Algran village near Anandpur Sahib and its level had risen alarmingly after yesterday’'s heavy rain in the hill state.
An official said an alarming 84,000 cusecs of water was recorded in the Swan at 2 pm today, as compared to 15,000 cusecs in the Sutlej. The normal flow of the Swan during the monsoon is 10,000 cusecs. It enters Punjab from Himachal near Mehendpur village in Nangal.
The official said an alert was sounded in villages on the Sutlej banks after the unusual increase in the water level at 11 am. While Burj village in Anandpur Sahib has been converted into an island, fields in Lodhipur, Ballowal, Mataur, Mehendli Kalan, Gajpur, Chandpur, Shahpur Bela, Hariwal, Bela Dhiani, Harsa Bela, Bela Ramgarh, Patti Tek Singh, Jindwari, Khanpur and Dasgrian villages have been submerged under two to three feet of water. Several ‘kutcha’ houses have been washed away.
It was around 2.30 pm that the heavy current of the Swan water, after merging with Sutlej, started overflowing the banks and spread all over the area, he said.
Eyewitnesses said water had already entered houses in Burj, Mehendli Kalan, Hariwal and Ballowal villages and the level of water in other villages was also rising alarmingly.
Last year, the Directorate of Irrigation and Power Research, Amritsar, had conducted a survey on the flow of the rivers and its impact in the area. On the recommendation of the survey, a proposal to construct a new ‘bundh’ at Lodhipur (costing Rs 13.43 crore) was submitted to the government, but nothing has been done so far.
Deputy Commissioner PK Agrawal said the flow of water in the Swan had started receding and the situation would be normal soon.
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‘Cheated’ by Sukhbir Residents of the affected villages had to face the vagaries of weather as the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal failed to fulfill his three year-old promise of getting the Lodhipur ‘bundh’ repaired. In August 2010, 1,000-feet stretch of the 'bundh' had got washed away, following which Sukhbir had visited the area and made the promise. |
