Curse of the Cusecs

As people join hands to pick up the pieces of lives disrupted by Punjab's worst flood since 1988, the spotlight turns on the management of water resources as an arena for inter-state and state-Centre sparring

- Sandeep Singh

WHEN the Ravi breached its embankment near Ghonewala around 5 am on August 27-and within 10 minutes washed away almost the entire village—Gurbhaj Singh, 38, of the neighbouring Jatta village in Amritsar district, had sat through the night in fear. He remembered the devastating 1988 flood that had washed away their family home. Rebuilt on higher ground, this time it survived the deluge that took down at least 60 per cent of the houses in Jatta. But the 40 acres Gurbhaj had leased to grow sugarcane went under water like most of the village farms. "How will I repay the Rs 26.5 lakh I had borrowed for the lease and the sowing?" he asks. "I can't even sow the next crop as the fields are still waterlogged. People didn't even get time to untie their cattle. They were washed away like our crops and most of the houses."

Gurbhaj, who says it will take him at least five years to recover the losses, is only one of tens of thousands who suffered as the flood inundated 2,483 villages in the state. The flood this time, the worst since 1988, affected all 23 districts of Punjab, claiming 56 lives with four others missing so far. Of the four lakh people impacted, nearly 2.96 lakh were from the Majha region, which faced the fury of both the Ravi and the Beas. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted rainfall 15 per cent above the average for Punjab, but actual rainfall turned out to be 50 per cent above the average. Moreover, with its snow-fed and rain-fed rivers originating from Himachal Pradesh and Tibet, excessive rains in the neighbouring hill state also cause floods in the Punjab plains. Indeed, any environmental disaster in the Himalayas that leads to flash floods and heavy rains is always likely to impact Punjab, too. During the flood this time nearly 400 lives were lost in Himachal, with homes and highways washed away.