Areas near Gobind Sagar Lake face water shortage

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 29

Around 50 villages in Una and Bilaspur districts on the banks of the Gobind Sagar Lake are without drinking water supply. The residents of the villages are generally the oustees of the Bhakra Dam.

Salangari village in Una district is one such village. Though the IPH Department has provided drinking water supply to the village, it faces acute shortage of drinking water in summers. Many villages do not have access to roads as the BBMB had not allowed construction of roads due to security of the Bhakra Dam.

Romesh, a resident of Raipur village located on the banks of the Gobind Sagar Lake, said they had their agriculture lands on the banks of the Sutlej before the Bhakra Dam was constructed. However, most of the fertile lands of the area were submerged in the Gobind Sagar Lake. Villagers of the area were allotted lands in arid areas of Haryana and Rajasthan. Most of the oustees did not move to allotted lands and preferred to stay in their villages.

“However, today we are sitting on the banks of the Gobind Sagar Lake, but do not have proper access to drinking or irrigation water. Out agriculture is dependent on rains,” he said.Suresh Kumar, another resident of Raipur, said for the residents of oustee villages, even the drinking water was not available.

Vikas Labroo, Deputy Commissioner, Una, admitted that there was shortage of drinking and irrigation water in many villages located on the banks of the Gobind Sagar Lake. He said the underground water level was low in the villages located on the banks of the lake. For lifting the water from the lake, permission had to be sought from the BBMB. In some villages, lift irrigation and drinking water schemes have been installed. However, the problem persists for other villages.

Sources in the IPH Department said special lift irrigation schemes could be designed for lift irrigation and drinking water schemes in areas lying along the Gobind Sagar Lake.