Water outlets’ height row: Fardikot farmers lock horns with canal department, warn of tough protests after 2 weeks

Nirbhai Singh Dhudike, president of Kirti Kisan Union, accused the Punjab government of playing a trick by increasing the height of water outlets in many villages. “We have given two weeks’ time to the government and if they don’t resolve the issue, we will start protests in all Malwa districts which are solely dependent on canal water,” he added.

Water outlets are channels that direct water from canals to flow into agricultural fields for irrigation.

“The height of water outlets has been increased by the AAP government. It has been done in many villages of Punjab and Harinau is just one among them. We had given a memorandum to the canal department last September. As no step was taken by them, farmers of the village along with Kirti Kisan Union members on June 13 decreased the height of water outlets and made them parallel to the distributor,” said Rajinder Singh Deep Singh Wala, general secretary of Kirti Kisan Union.

In a retaliatory move, the canal department lodged a police complaint against the farmers. “They tried to change the height of water outlets but we didn’t let them do it again. FIR has been lodged against me and 40-50 unidentified people,” said Rajinder Singh Deep Singh Wala during the protest. He questioned the logic for changing the height of the canal that had been flowing from a height parallel to the distributary for the past 26 years.

The farmers also asked the police to quash the FIR against them.

Though the police have registered a case under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property and North India Canal Act 1873 (Section 3), no arrests have been made so far.

As of now only 27 per cent of canal water is being utilised by Punjab farmers for irrigation purposes. “The AAP government has arranged to provide more water for Rajasthan farmers and in return, they are troubling Punjab farmers,” Dhudike alleged.