Sangrur, July 19, 2019 (Yes Punjab News)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema has held the successive state and union governments responsible for the widespread loss of life and property due to floods in the state, especially in Patiala, Sangrur and Mansa districts. He said this after visiting a number of villages in the districts hit by the recent floods, leaving the victims suffer in silence.
Cheema, who on Friday visited the flood-hit villages, including Chandu, Mandvi and Makror Sahib (Khanauri- Moonak area) and listened to the travails of the affected people in the areas.
He flayed the successive state and central governments led by Captain Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal for their failure to put in place adequate measures to pre-empt chances of the unprecedented loss of lives and property caused by the floods, stating that were they alive to the problem of plenty, the Ghaggar playing havoc year after year would have proved a boon instead of curse to the marooned people.
He added that it was owing to their indifferent attitude that the project to straighten the 17 km stretch of Ghaggar beyond Makror Sahib pending for more than two decades now would have been completed by now.
He held the state and central governments, besides former Lehragaga MLA and former CM Bibi Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Patiala Member of Parliament (MP) Maharani Parneet Kaur and area MLA and former finance minister of Punjab, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, squarely responsible for the delay in the completion of the project that had led to a huge loss of life and property.
Quoting Sangrur deputy commissioner statement, the AAP leader further informed that the district administration had put up a demand for rupees 25 lakh to plug the leaky embankment at Phuld which, he said, led to an unprecedented loss of crores of rupees due to floods, alleging that the government could exempt a huge amount Rs 84 lakh as fine imposed on Bibi Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, but could not sanction the petty amount of 25 lakh to save precious lives of the people.
Referring to the trail of devastation the people had to face, Cheema said that Ghaggar river rained miseries on the people during the rainy season and gave an open invitation to some deadly diseases, like cancer, black jaundice (Hepatitis C) due to contaminated water of the Ghaggar river due to heavy inflow of pollutants and chemical released from factories in the area.
Others who accompanied Cheema included party’s halqua president Jasbir Singh Kudni, Baljeet Singh Mandvi, Munish Jain and local leadership of the party.
