CHANDIGARH: The Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) has reportedly expressed its inability to undertake the completion of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.
The reason given by the BRTF officials, according to informed sources, is that the organisations has no experience of civil works and is not equipped to undertake such a gigantic task.
The Union Government had reportedly sent a letter to the BRTF some time back asking it to complete the pending work on the canal. No reference was made to the Punjab Government.
The BRTF officials were in a fix as they were aware that no other agency or contractor was prepared to do the work on the canal especially after a Chief Engineer and a Superintending Engineer were killed in their office here on Madhya Marg in July last year.
The BRTF in its reply to the Union Government reportedly said that the organization was working as a frontline agency for building roads, both in the hills and the plains near the international border, for the defence forces but was unable to accept any assignment pertaining to civil works.
The polite refusal of the BRTF has put the Union Government in a quandary as the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Devi Lal, and his son, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, a general secretary of the ruling Janata Dal (S), have been reportedly pressing the center for early completion of the canal.
On the other hand, when Gen Malhotra, new Governor of Punjab, convened a high-level meeting last week to review the work on the SYL, the Irrigation Department expressed its inability to resume the work.
The Governor was informed that no engineer was prepared to accept posting in the SYL circle. The work on the canal has remained suspended for a long time now. The Governor said that he would take up the issue with the Union Government and explain the state’s predicament. No Superintending Engineer is prepared to take the current duty charge as Chief Engineer, SYL. The present incumbent has proceeded on long leave.
Senior officials of the Irrigation Department made it clear to the Governor that no engineer or civil contractor in Punjab was prepared to touch the SYL. Further, no work could be undertaken against the wishes of the people of the state.
The Irrigation Department has been appraised of the problems the farmers of the state were facing on account of the civil works already completed. In the absence of any system for flow of rain water, many villages get flooded even after normal rainfall. The department may have to provide siphons as a relief measure to the farmers’.
At the Fateh garh sahib jor mela Babbar Khalsa international gave a call for filling up the already dug up canal a point that was suppressed by Hindu media.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 11, 1991
