As many as 7000 acres of fertile agricultural land has been eroded in Bajwat-Sialkot far-off bordering villages due to erosion in River Chenab during the six years before the two years long closure of water in this river towards Pakistan by India.
Talking to the visiting senior journalists, the local affected farmers including Muhammad Shafi alias Chief Sahib, Sufi Ahmed Khan and others urged the Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif to announce early financial compensation for the affected farmers, whose fertile agriculture land has been eroded.
They said that though there was no water in River Chenab here for the last two years, but the dozens of the more Sialkot far-off bordering villages, including Khanu Bhau, Papeen, Saddarpura, Gangwal, Kaliyaal, Ghazipura of Bajwat along with the Sialkot Working Boundary still have been facing severe threats of erosion due to uncontrolled continuous erosion in River Chenab.
They said that if India releases water in Chenab then these villages would be eroded. They said that the district, provincial and federal governments have yet totally disappointed the local villagers. They said that the local villagers had constructed three unpaved embankments three years near Bajwat's above mentioned villages to save these villages from eroding on self-help basis.
The purpose of making these embankments was to halt any further erosion in river Chenab if India releases water there. They alleged that a big quantity of stones was lying useless near Head Marala Barrage for the last several years but the irrigation department was not providing these useless stones to the affected villagers, enabling them to pave these three unpaved embankments through stone pitching.
Earlier, addressing a recently held important meeting of District Focal Group Sialkot, President Kissan Mazdoor Ittehad Phookaliyaan-Bajwat Sufi Ahmed Khan said that erosion of 7000 acres of fertile agricultural land during the span of six years before the closure of water by India in River Chenab near Bajwat as a great loss for local poor villagers and farmers.
He said that they were in dire need of government help and financial compensation to avert further aggregating financial crisis in future. The meeting was organised by NGO "Community Development Concern" (CDC) Sialkot here in active collaboration with South Asia Partnership Pakistan.
During his speech, a leading progress farmer Muhammad Suleman Ghuman pointed out that there was no strategy by any government to give financial compensation to these affected farmers.
Muhammad Shafi alias Chief Sahib and Sufi Ahmed Khan also urged the Punjab CM to visit the Bajwat area to ascertain the difficulties and prolonged perturbing problems being faced by the affected farmers. They added that the dozens of the houses and standing seasonal crops of the local poor people had also been eroded due this erosion in River Chenab in these villages, forcing the effected people to shift to the safer places to avoid their possible losses of their cattle, moveable and in moveable properties.
According to the officials of Sialkot agricultural department, this erosion during the last six years (before the two years long closure of water in Chenab by India) had been eroded more than 7000 acres of agricultural land in these erosion-hit bordering villages.
While, several dozens of the houses of the poor villagers had also been eroded by the river Chenab's erosion, putting the poor villagers at the mercy of this erosion caused by the continuous changing of its courses by the river Chenab, as Bajwat's several villages had already been washed out, while dozens of the villages are in the grip of this unending erosion. The affected people including women and children have protested against the alleged negligence of the concerned government functionaries and local politicians' step-motherly treatment, in this regard.
They said the local political "big guns" including former Speaker National Assembly Chaudhry Ameer Hussain, Federal Minister for Population Welfare Dr Fardous Ashiq Awan and former provincial minister Muhammad Ajmal Cheema did nothing in practical while remaining in power to save these villages from erosion.
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