300 acres of farmland flooded near Patiala

Patiala: Heavy rain in the catchment of a season rivulet has flooded over 300 acres of agricultural land in four villages near Rajpura and Ghanaur towns of the district.

Water from the rivulet, Pachi Dara, has entered the fields of Jhandoli, Madanpur, Batonia and Khanpur villages. Farmers have sought compensation from the state government for the damage caused to crop.

According to villagers, the rivulet started overflowing in the morning and fields around it were inundated in hours. Gian Singh, a local, said the rain hadn’t been this heavy in four years. He said most of the villages fell in low-lying areas and that led to flooding. Many farmers had planted paddy about 10 days ago. As flood water carries silt, farmers are worried it might damage the crop.

Dyan Singh, a farmer from Madanpur, said he spent Rs 10,000 per acre just to plant paddy on his four acres and now he feared that it would all be destroyed. Jasmer Singh, another villager, said these villages were facing a shortage of cattle feed due to the flooding of agricultural fields where they had stored fodder.Patiala deputy commissioner Kumar Amit said they were in know of things and measures were being taken to provide relief to farmers. He said officials of the irrigation department had been dispatched to affected areas.

Officials of the irrigation department are monitoring the condition of all five bridges whose foundations had been weakened by illegal mining and heavy flow of water in Ghaggar. Superintending engineer Davinder Singh said the situation was under control.