Multiple breaches along the incomplete Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal, which has been at the focus of the longest-pending dispute between Haryana and Punjab, and the largely seasonal Ghaggar river tributaries, have emerged as the cause for much misery in both of India’s main food-producing states.
While Punjab is yet to assess the destruction and still grappling with the situation as monsoonal flood waters submerged more than 300 southern villages and their farmland, officials in neighbouring Haryana, which has borne the worst brunt of flood waters draining downstream in the usually empty SLY Canal, said “preliminary estimates indicate the losses at Rs 650 crores.”
“There is a deluge in 32 Sangrur villages and we can already see the flood advancing further westwards towards Mansa and other areas,” Punjab’s director agriculture B.S. Sidhu, who was out in field trying to minimise crop losses, told this newspaper on Friday. According to him Patiala has been the worst hit district though the flood in parts of Ludhiana appeared to receding following the let up in rainfall.
The only bit of good news amidst the watery chaos has been that much of the wheat crop harvested this April is safe in godowns or covered open stacks on raised plinths.
“There could be some damage where more than three feet of water entered the storage sites but I believe that would be minimal,” Mr Sidhu said.
More than 250 villages across Haryana’s Ambala, Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts have been affected and local administrations have had to request the Indian Army to assist with the relief and rescue efforts.
Four columns from Two Corps have been deployed to help plug breaches along the SYL Canal.
The troops also rescued over 100 people and reached essential supplies including water to others trapped by the swirling flood waters. Soldiers also had to contend with extensive flooding in the cantonment areas at Ambala which house major air and land defence formations.
Detachments of the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) requisitioned from the Centre also assisted the army and state officials in Haryana.
Recently sown fields of rice and maize have been affected across large tracts in the affected districts where the water stagnated in both Punjab and Haryana. Officials said Haryana’s crop damage is estimated at Rs 400 crores which is in addition to about Rs 250 crores lost in the destruction of roads and canals.