8 farmers booked for lifting gates at headworks

Our Correspondent

Abohar, June 25

A case has been registered against eight farmers in Sriganganagar on a complaint lodged by the Rajasthan Water Resources Department.

The authorities said today that Balraj Singh and seven others illegally lifted some gates by laying siege to the Netewala headworks on Saturday. Assistant Engineer Himanshu Sharma and other officials rushed to the headworks as the farmers took selfies on the spot and flashed the same on social media after the alleged action.

Preliminary investigation reportedly indicated that farmers feared that they may miss the fifth scheduled turn too to irrigate their fields as chairpersons of canal water users’ committees had recently boycotted the meeting of the regulation committee at Sriganganagar. The uplifting of gates reportedly resulted 300 cusecs of discharge in the GG canal designed to run with 195 cusecs only. The GG canal had been dry during their previous four turns as hyacinth had disrupted the supply through the Gang Canal.

Gang Canal Samiti spokesman Santveer Singh refuted the allegations and claimed that only 50 cusecs of water had been released by the authorities in the GG canal. Some farmers who reached there assisted the staff in uplifting the gates to enhance the flow as per the schedule. He urged the authorities to withdraw the case.