Chandigarh , July 15 : Its appalling to note that a Chief Engineer of the Irrigation Department of Punjab Mr. R.K Goel was believed to be instrumental in releasing more than 2.5 Lac cusec days excess water to Rajasthan from the Bhakra Nangal Dam reservoir out of the Punjab share, at a time when Punjab was reeling under unprecedented power cuts and was facing literally a draught like situation because of the non arrival of the monsoons . It is pertinent to mention here that Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) can not release the excess water from the reservoir without obtaining the written consent of the Chief Engineer canals Punjab.One wonders that while the Technical Committee meets under the Chairmanship of Chairman of the BBMB every month to decide the share of the partner States how a particular State has drawn water in excess of its share. In one of the meeting of the Technical committee which was surprisingly held at Jaiselmer (Rajasthan) instead of Chandigarh in the month of March 2009, under the Chairmanship of Mr.U C Misra (Chaiman BBMB) where all the partner states were represented , in the agenda note of this meeting circulated by the BBMB to the partner States , the share of Rajasthan was shown to be only 600 cusecs for the remaining period, how come a discharge of more than 10000 cusecs was allowed to Rajasthan. This is far more in excess to the share of the Rajasthan.
Its horrendous that Punjab’s share of water exceeding 2.5 Lac cusec was allowed to flow for 25 days to Rajasthan and the officer who was responsible to ensure that Punjab’s interest are not compromised and not a single drop of water flows in excess to the entitled share of the partner States was guilty of bartering away the interests of Punjab in favour of Rajasthan.
Role of BBMB should also be brought under scanner and Central Vigilance Commission should take suo-moto notice of the clandestine activities of the Members of the BBMB. For instances one of the meeting of the Technical Committee in the month of May.2009 was held at Manali (H.P) and members who participated in the meeting stayed in the five star hotels rather than the Government Rest Houses and expenditure incurred on this meeting was more than 8 lacs and Punjab was made to share 60 % of the total expenditure incurred for such meeting. Intriguingly the offices of the BBMB and Chief Engineers of Canals Punjab & Haryana are located in Chandigarh. Such a brazen misuse of Public exchequer should be enquired in to by the Central Vigilance Commission. Besides this Punjab Government should immediately initiate criminal proceedings against the erring official for wilfully betraying the interest of Punjab.