Raghbir Singh Brar
Faridkot
Email:raghbirsinghbrar@gmail.com
State President of Bhartiya Kisan union Sidhupur -Ekta Jagjeet Singh Dallewal on Wednesday lashed out at the state government that the farmers can sell the sand deposited on their farm lands by the flooded rivers by November 15 under the banner of the scheme of “Jis Da Khet-Us Da Ret”(one who owns the land,he owns the sand”)
This slogan was first given by the ousted minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal,in a video appeal to the CM Punjab.
“This sand is not pure. The rivers have silted the lands from the 2 -3 feet to 15 feet. The rivers carry all kinds of material whatever comes to their ways. It may be sand,soil,hill soils and some kinds of construction material,as a kind of waste material. So we can not say that all the kinds of the material deposited by the flooded rivers is sand which is used in construction.The farmers have lost their crops at the tune of Rs 70000 per acre and for the recovery of the land to sow next crops, they may have to spend Rs 1 lakh on the per acre of land. So the megre compensation of Rs 20000 per acre by the Punjab government and Rs 1600 crore by the union government is too less compensate the farmers.It is a crude joke with the flood hit victims,’ alleged Jagjeet Singh Dallewal, state President of BKU Sidhupur Ekta speaking with the Punjab Express.com from Amritsar.”
Dallewal also questioned the condition imposed by the government that they can lift the sand from their fields by November 15.
“The fields can take a long to dry and only then the farmers can start levelling their fields and sell the deposited sand. It may take months and months so why a condition of November 15, which is only a month away? Dallewal questioned.
“ This is a man-made disaster because the water level in the dams could not be brought down up to the ideal level of 1450 in June.The floods have caused a loss of about Rs 8000 crores and about 52 lives have been lost,it could have been avoided,” Dallewal alleged.
“According to the reports of the union government, Punjab has suffered a loss upto Rs 13000 crore and how can Rs 1600 crore can be justified,” alleged Jagjeet Singh Dallewal.
Coming down heavily on the Punjab government,Dallewal alleged that the state government has compensated the people who died of poisoned liquor with Rs 10 lakh and a government job to the family of the deceased, but now the government has only provided Rs 4 lakh relief to the dead of the flood hit families.
“The government has announced that it would provide Rs 20000 per acre compensation to the farmers for the damaged crops which is too low.Even they have to suffer a loss of Rs 1 lakh for the crop destruction and preparing the fields for the next crop. Apart from it, the farmers have suffered huge loss of the animals which is yet to be compensated. During the last floods in 2023, the farmers were not compensated for the loss of the animals,” said Bohar Singh Rupian Wala,district president of BKU Sidhupur –Ekta from Faridkot
The union has demanded Rs 25 compensation to the next of kin to the deceased and sufficient compensation for the destroyed crops,preparing the fields for the next crop.
In his article in the Down To Earth, journalist Amandeep Sandhu has alleged that the Punjab has to share the irrigation water with Rajasthan and Haryana for which it has to allegedly store more water than its needs and when it is released, it causes destruction in Punjab alone while Punjab does not get any royalty of its canal water standing alone the bearers of loss.(roughly incorporated from DTE,Panjab Journeys through Fault lines-Amandeep Sandhu)
