E-Paper
Ravi erosion: Plan in place to save agricultural land in Gurdaspur
On the request of the villagers, Dera Baba Nanak MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has given a Rs 4 crore -cheque to the drainage department.
The Ravi has recently eroded 130 feet-long and 25 feet-wide cultivable land of Chanduwadala and Rosse villages, situated near the international border between India and Pakistan in Gurdaspur district. The river has already eroded 3,500-foot long and 100-foot wide cultivable land of these villages.
The continuous erosion of the land of these villages has become a serious cause of concern to residents of these villages.They fear that some day, the river will completely engulf their villages and the international border will expand to the Indian side as the Ravi also serves at certain places as the international border between the two countries.
On the request of the villagers, Dera Baba Nanak MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has come to their rescue. Randhawa convened a meeting of senior officers of the State Drainage Department, including chief engineer AK Bansal, superintending engineer (Amritsar circle) Jasbir Singh Sandhu and Gurdaspur executive engineer) Xen Jaspal Singh Bhinder at Chanduwadala on Saturday. Randhawa gave away a cheque for Rs 4 crore to the drainage department to build a stud (a wall-like obstruction) and a spur (collection of heavy stones tied together in iron wires) to change the direction of water in the river to save the land of these villages from erosion. Randhawa had received this amount as development fund for his assembly constituency, Dera Baba Nanak, but he preferred these funds to using for taming the flow of the Ravi in these villages.
Pakistan has a natural topographical advantage over India here as its level of ground is higher than that of India. So, naturally water of the Ravi will flow more into the Indian territory than in Pakistan. In case of floods, river water will cause damage to the Indian side. Moreover, Pakistan has built a high concrete bandh on the bank of the river opposite these Indian villages. So, the river water here can flow only towards the Indian side.
Interestingly, the Ravi flows here in a zig zag manner. It somewhere enters the Indian territory and at other points it flows over Pakistani land. A Pakistani Rangers' post, named Nazir Ahmad Shah post, is situated across the Ravi towards the Indian side at a distance of about 200 metres from where the proposed stud and spur will be built in the Ravi, Xen Jaspal Singh Bhinder said adding that the work on the construction of the proposed stud and spur will begin shortly.
