February 02, 2007	Friday	Muharram 13, 1428

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MUZAFFARGARH, Feb 1: The river Chenab has eroded 350 houses in eight mauzas and 800 acres near Rangpur in Muzaffargarh district during the last few days.

According to reports, a total of 16 villages have been washed away by water and the erosion is posing a threat to the Rangpur Canal because the river is just 20 feet from the west bank of the canal. The local villagers are trying to save their land and the canal by raising embankments and safety walls of stones and trunk of trees.

The erosion also endangers Head Muhammadwala which is hardly a kilometre away from the river. It is feared that any damage to the head will cause a loss of millions of rupees to the irrigation department and thousands of farmers will be deprived of water in the days to come.

A visit to Basti Tibbi, Mauza Kheree, Khajiwala, Santi, Pippli, Kotla Sadaat, Lashkarpur, Hajipur, Faridabad, Khudai Basti, Ganji and Jalari on Thursday revealed that the river was fast eroding village dwellings, standing crops and orchards. People stood helpless against the mighty waves and flow of the river. Many villages wore a deserted look as the people vacated their houses and shifted to safer shores.

Wapda officials were seen removing transformers, meters and cables from many villages to save the effects.

Local villagers told Dawn that the erosion had started 10 days ago and they immediately informed the district administration about the situation, but no step had so far been taken.

“We have lost everything,” Union Council Kheree’s ex-nazim Mehr Mushtaq. He said erosion had eaten up land, standing crops and homes. He said about 350 families had been stranded and needed urgent help and many homeless villagers had temporarily been shifted to their relatives’ houses.

He said the villagers of Kotla Sadaat had built an embankment at a cost of Rs5 million last year on a self-help basis, but now the erosion had made the embankment part of the river.

“This year we were expecting a bumper wheat yield and we had spent a huge money on fertilisers, irrigation and pesticides. But everything has gone waste.” They said the district administration had not provided them with any relief and the DCO had announced that relief would be provided to them soon.

They demanded that the area should be declared calamity hit and the authorities concerned should waive agricultural loans and provide other facilities to the affected people.

Meanwhile, DCO Tariq Najib Najmi, MPA Sardar Amjad Hameed Khan Dasti, SE Ghufran Ahmad and irrigation Xen Khalid Iqbal visited the affected areas. The DCO asked the irrigation authorities to submit a report on the actual losses within two days so that the affected people could be compensated.

Chaudhry Ghufran said the PC-I for an embankment at Khajji had been completed and this nine-kilometre long spur would be constructed before the next flood season.

On the other hand, many villagers blamed Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock Sirdar Sikandar Hayat Khan for the erosion from the Chenab. They said erosion had hit this area for the first time and caused a large-scale damage only because the minister had got an embankment built in violation of rules to save his land.

They said the embankment called Luckwala bundh near the Nawabpur bundh was established near the river which did not allow the water to expand and it increased the flow of water.

Some villagers said the high flow of water in the river was unusual because in February there used to be shortage of water in the river. He said the area was badly hit when the Indus water was released in the Chenab through the Taunsa-Punjnad Link Canal to irrigate the maximum area of Bahawalpur district, Alipur and Uch Sharif. The share of Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan was diverted to the river Chenab because of some technical faults developed in Taunsa Barrage rehabilitation and modernisation project.

This correspondent could not contact the minister despite repeated attempts.