Administration begins cleaning of village ponds

Archit Watts
Tribune News Service
Muktsar, June 17

To tackle the problem of waterlogging during the rainy season, the district administration has started cleaning village ponds.

The district administration has set June 30 as the deadline to complete the task.

A senior official said the panchayat funds were being used for the purpose and as many as 25 nodal officers had been appointed to monitor the work.

The District Development and Panchayat Officer is looking after it, said the official.

Meanwhile, the district administration has appealed to area residents to provide information about the pace of the work. It has also asked them to inform if the work has not started anywhere.

Navdeep Brar of Sukhna Ablu village and Gurpreet Singh of Sammewali village said officials were yet to start cleaning of pond in their villages.

Notably, rain has caused widespread losses in Muktsar district in the past.

The partial exercise in 2013 had proved to be disastrous when some villages had remained waterlogged for almost a month. Some officials said the funds for flood-control measures were decreasing every year.

“The previous SAD-BJP government used to release huge amounts for flood-prevention works, but the present Congress government is not releasing that much amount. We are trying our best with the funds available. But, if it rains for more than three days continuously, the situation may again become similar that of in 2013,” officials said.