Several villages cut off in Punjab’s Mansa district

CHANDIGARH - Several villages were marooned in Punjab’s Mansa district Tuesday as the Ghaggar river overflowed its banks, officials said.

“The flood situation in Sardulgarh area of Mansa district started worsening today (Tuesday). So far flood water has affected at least 22 villages in the area,” the state government’s official spokesman said.

“Overflowing of Ghaggar from the bridge connecting Sardulgarh town to Mansa has remained a point of concern, since the water level has not receded. Senior officials of district police and administration are camping in Mansa to monitor the situation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Tuesday released a grant of Rs. 22 crore for the cleaning of drains all across the state to avoid further flooding.

“Badal has directed irrigation authorities to complete this task on a war footing. A sum of Rs.9 crore has been released to plug the existing breaches,” the spokesman said.

Badal has also asked the state cooperative department to defer the recovery of crop loans from the farmers of flood hit villages and to immediately convert short term loans into long term loans.

Amarjit Singh Dullat, Punjab’s Chief Engineer (Irrigation), told IANS: “The water level is receding in most parts of Punjab. No fresh breach was reported in Ghaggar and situation is under control in most districts of Punjab.”

As per official records, over 1,200 villages in Rupnagar (58), Patiala (490), Sangrur (28), Mohali (55), Ludhiana (200), Fatehgarh Sahib (190), Moga (6) and Mansa (22) have been cut off in Punjab, affecting a population of 4 lakh. Floods have also damaged crops over the area of 271,784 acres besides damaging 2,868.75 km of roads.

The weather office has predicted moderate to heavy rain in most parts of Punjab and some places in Haryana till Wednesday.

So far 33 people have been killed due to floods in Punjab and Haryana.