Indomitable spirit of Punjab’s villagers saves towns from flooding

Villagers in Sardulgarh sub-division in Punjab’s Mansa district exemplified the spirit to survive as the gushing waters of the Ghaggar river breached its banks at five places over the past week

Parteek Singh Mahal

Instead of waiting for government help to arrive or cursing their fate, the villagers in Punjab took the initiative of plugging the breaches. (HT Photo)

parteek.singh@htlive.com

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Villagers in Sardulgarh sub-division in Punjab’s Mansa district exemplified the spirit to survive as the gushing waters of the Ghaggar river breached its banks at five places over the past week.

After a fresh breach at Phus Mandi on Tuesday afternoon, the water reached outskirts of Sardulgarh town, a few metres from the Sirsa-Mansa highway connecting the town with Haryana’s Fatehabad district. While the authorities were still assessing the situation at Sardulgarh, local residents, most of them villagers, gathered in large numbers and brought along tractor-trailers and a JCB machine to build a temporary embankment on the highway to Haryana to stop the water from entering the town. The embankment, built on a 2km stretch, has prevented the water from entering Sardulgarh, but diverted the flow on Ratia road, which is an open area. Though people managed to stop water from entering the area for more than a day, flood water entered low-lying areas of the town on Wednesday evening. The water level inside the city is not that high and the embankment is holding up.

Harpreet Singh (42), a farmer of Sardulgarh, driving a tractor to level the embankment, said: “Our plan has worked. The excess water will flow towards Ratia road without entering the city. The administration did provide us with some fuel but most of the spending is being done by ourselves. The local residents of Sardulgarh and surrounding villages came together after getting the news of a breach in the Phus Mandi embankment. They held a discussion and started the work of making temporary embankments to divert the flow.”

Hundreds of people had gathered at the state highway on Tuesday and more than 40 tractor-trailers were working on the highway to make the embankment. The residents of the town provided food to people who were working to stop the water.

Villagers are also strengthening the Ghaggar’s embankments in north-west of Sardulgarh to prevent a new breach.

Gurjant Singh (26), a local resident, who is a student, said despite breaches in neighbouring Rorki and Chandpura, the river’s water level is not going down. “We are trying to strengthen the embankment by putting up more sand bags. Water is already moving towards Sardulgarh from the east and another breach will mean destruction,” he said.

Even before the breach in Chandpura Bundh, the villagers of surrounding villages were camping at the site to tackle the situation.

On Saturday morning, the Ghaggar breached Chandpura Bundh and locals attempted to plug it even before the administration stepped in. Babbu Kulrian, who is a farmer, said after the breach at Chandpura, his native village was the first to be affected. “We tried our best to prevent the breach but in vain. The administration did nothing to help,” he said.

Despite repeated attempts, officials refrained from commenting on public efforts.