Former Haryana Minister and INLD leader Sampat Singh has urged the State Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Irrigation to conduct an immediate technical inspection of Haryana’s entire irrigation infrastructure.
The former minister said that he had conducted a personal inspection recently accompanied by a retired irrigation engineer and found widespread structural damage.
Interacting with the media here on Wednesday, he said, “We found numerous cracks near the Khanauri Head, thick bushes clogging canals, and blocked Dharodhi siphons at reduced distance (RD) 9.73, has become a major obstruction where hundreds of dead animals and debris were found blocking the water flow.
Similarly, Kalawan and Piplatha siphon were also obstructing the water flow,” he stated.
The former minister said that the reduced availability of water has resulted in severely restricted supplies through the Bhakra canal system. “Presently, 500 cusecs are being supplied to Yamuna Command Area through Dhamtan Distributary, Siwani Feeder, Barsola Distributary, Sinsar and Gurthali Minors, Dharmgarh Minor and Dharodhi Distributary,” he said adding that it had left the tail-end areas of the Bhakra canal system suffer from chronic water shortages.
He warned that failure to take swift and corrective measures would trigger severe irrigation and drinking water crises across the state.
Stating that years of neglected maintenance have put the vital Bhakra and Yamuna systems under severe stress, Singh said that critical infrastructures like the NBK Link and the Sirsa Branch, designed to interconnect both systems, are failing to balance water distribution effectively.
He alleged that the Haryana Government has repeatedly failed to secure its rightful water share.
“Under the 1954 Yamuna Water Agreement, Haryana was entitled to two-thirds of the water, but a subsequent 1994 agreement signed under pressure reduced this share to just 47 per cent. Furthermore, internal water diversions from the Bhakra system have led to persistent shortages in the tail-end areas of Nalwa and Adampur,” he said.
The design capacity of the Bhakra Main Barwala Link Channel has plummeted from 1750 cusecs to just 1250 cusecs, Singh said, adding that a 2015 project to raise the canal embankments from 18 feet to 19.4 feet remains stalled after objections from Rajasthan, despite Haryana paying Rs 4.65 crore to Punjab for its work.
He added that the total absence of a water gauge at Khanauri Head raises serious concerns about whether Haryana is receiving its full allocated share.
Terming the Bhakra network a lifeline for Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa, Singh demanded immediate government intervention.