Punjab floods: The Punjab government Monday decided to carry out desilting operations at 85 sites in Ravi and Sutlej rivers, the move coming a fortnight after Punjab and Haryana High Court allowed the state to carry out the operation to combat floods. The government estimates the deposits at 190 crore cubic feet, worth Rs 840 crore and will soon be floating tenders. Now, the government wants to carry out the desilting operations quickly lest the issue is caught in another legal tangle. The issue was discussed in two meetings on Monday — in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and another chaired by Chief Secretary KAP Sinha. While Sinha’s meeting, in the morning gave approval to the decision on desilting at 85 sites, the Cabinet allowed the department of mines and geology to reduce the time of tendering process from 21 days to 14 days. Earlier, following a PIL by Advocate Sehajpreet Singh, the government had told the High Court on August 1 that it would not go ahead with desilting. It had kept on hold the tenders even after these were floated. Advocate Singh had claimed in his PIL that the government wanted to go ahead with mining in the garb of desilting. Punjab Water Resources, Mines and Geology Minister Barinder Goyal confirmed said that they would be allowing desilting of sand from the river bed at 85 places in Sutlej and Ravi. He said there are 28 such sites in Beas also where the desilting is needed, but cannot be taken up as that river's bed is a notified Ramsar site sine 2019. Goyal blamed the previous Congress government for listing the Beas riverbed as forest reserve. “We will now take up the case with the Centre and seek approval for desilting in Beas too,” he said. Deposition of silt overs the years has given rise to plateau like structures on riverbed, leading to floods in Punjab. A government official said that following the formation of these plateaus, the river water formed creeks running parallel to the Dhussi bunds. These creeks exerted pressure on the bundhs that got either washed away or gave way. “Removal of the silt is the need of the hour. The rivers need to have capacity to carry water,” the official said. The floods in Punjab this year, the worst since 1988, were blamed largely on reduction in smooth flow of water due to deposition of silt. With desilting, the rivers will be able to carry an additional 1 lakh cusecs of water. The rivers currently have a carrying capacity of 2.5 lakh cusecs. The government had on June 9 floated tenders, inviting contractors to silt the sand from Sutlej near Ismailpur block in Jalandhar and sell it in the open market at a reserve price of Rs 4.50 per cubic foot after paying a royalty of Rs 2.5 to the state government. Before the tenders could be allotted, a PIL was filed in the high court on July 25 seeking a stay on the silting on the plea that environmental clearance was not sought for the same. The department of water resources, mining and geology on August 1 informed the high court that they would not finalise the e-tendering process, not only on the single tender challenged in the court but also on nine others, floated for desilting in Sutlej at nine other places. Finally, on September 22, the government told the High Court that desilting was the need of the hour.
