| Ranbir Canal : Less a canal, more looks like a garbage dumping nallah | | | Bijay Charak
Jammu, Feb 3: Sixty kilometers long Ranbir Canal, considered to be a lifeline of farmers, is more looking a garbage dumping site than an irrigation canal these days.
Presently the water flow in the canal has been stopped for de-silting but if one go through the picturesque of canal, there can be seen large heaps of garbage, silt, broken trees, polythene carry bags while other wastage, which has reduced the width and depth of canal to half of its actual size. Ranbir Canal which starts from Akhnoor and after traversing from various localities of Jammu city, ends at the border belt of RS Pura tehsil.
It is one such canal which provides irrigation facility to Lakhs of acres of agriculture land of more than one hundred villages of Jammu district, but every year the farmers of tail end villages lodges their protest against the authorities as the water of canal does not reach to their fields. It is only due to the reason that the irrigation department has not de-silted the canal completely. Moreover, more than 20 sewerage drains have been submerging into the canal, while dozens of localities have also sprang up on the sides of canal and the inhabitants throw garbage into the canal.
"Mainly the vendors, shopkeepers, vegetable vendors, butchers, sweet shop owners while hundreds of other throws their wastage into the canal and making it filthy with each passing day", an official of irrigation department said.
Sham Choudhary of Kotli Miran Sahib said that at one hand the irrigation department didn't completely de-silt the canal and on the other the residents of various localities, from where the canal passed, throw garbage into the canal. "The intake capacity of canal has decreased manifolds due to non-desilting since last many decades, while more and more garbage is being dumped into the canal every day" he said, adding that Ranbir canal water has been providing livelihood to thousands of farmers but due to decrease in the intake capacity of canal the land has converted into rain-fed area.
Rubail Singh a resident of Satwari said, it is not the only responsibility of state government or irrigation department alone, to keep the canal clean but every common citizen owns the same, to keep the water bodies clean.
"The irrigation department should impose fine on the shopkeepers, vendors who used to throw garbage into the canal.
While the vendors who have installed their establishments on the banks of Canal should also be removed from these areas" he opined. It is also disgusting on the part of Jammu Municipal Corporation that many sewerage nullas are submerging into the canal but no action has been taken yet. Hundreds of metric tonnes of garbage are submerging into the canal daily. |
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