 Arun Trisal
Early Times Report
Kathua, Dec 9: A large number of people and thousands of hectares of agricultural land are badly affected due to unavailability of water supply in border area of Hiranagar sector.
People have to consume dirty water of Tarnha nallah and they cannot irrigate their land, resulting is water-borne diseases among the people and desert-like position of fertile land.
Bharat Bhushan, senior vice-president of Border Welfare Council, condemned what he called mal-functioning of state government. He said the authorities concerned had installed 6-8 dugwells in different areas of Hiranagar in 2010-11 and spent around Rs 20 lakhs on them. However, water supply could not be restored.
Bhushan said these dig-wells were installed under central sponsored irrigation scheme, but no channel, station or tubewell has been functioning.
"If the union government constructed these digwells, water should have been restored to the area," Bhushan said.
Ashok Kumar, a social worker, said these digwells were installed in Chander Chak, Khalak swampa, Gadiyala villages. "The digwells are defunct. We approached the Deputy Commissioner Kathua, but shockingly he did not know under which schemes these digwells were constructed."
Kumar said when a deputation met the state's Irrigation Minister, he informed that these dugwells were constructed under a central scheme for irrigation purposes and the state government can't do anything in this regard.
Ghulam Khatana, a Gujjar leader said, "Refugees and Gujjar families are the most affected, as they have to use polluted water due to unavailability of clean water."
The people demanded that government should pay attention towards these digwells and make them useful for drinking and irrigation purposes. |
