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Journalism of Courage
NAWANSHAHR, July 13: Punjab Kandi Sangharsh Committee general secretary Darshan Singh Mattoo today urged the state government to strictly follow the norms and to employ labour as laid down in the provisions of the Rs 409-crore Japanese-aided forestry project.
He said that if the government employed only 22 per cent of the proposed strength of labourers, as was being mooted by certain vested interests in the state, the project would fail and this would prove suicidal for the people and the state.
It would not only reduce the avenues of employment for the weaker section but would also make it difficult to care for the planted trees.
Mattoo further urged for the early completion of the Kandi canal, in order to irrigate the arid Kandi area, which constitutes one-and-a-half per cent of the total area of the state.
The general secretary lamented that in the past 20 years only 67 km of the 139-km stretch of the canal in the Balachaur tehsil of Nawanshahr had been completed.
He said that there was need to alter the present route of the canal as it was likely to cause floods and render the land more infertile, and added that the canal should be built along the mountains on the eastern side. Any obstruction to the flow of water should be overcome by mechanically lifting it, as was being done in some other states, he said.
Mattoo emphasised that only the construction of the canal on a war footing would solve the drinking and irrigation problems of the people in area, which covered four districts, namely Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Ropar.
