Chandigarh: People living along Yamuna have
been asked to remain alert following the release of over 3.25
lakh cusecs of water into the river from Hathni Kund barrage
today, even as a senior official maintained that the state had
no role in floods in Delhi.
Deputy Commissioner (Sonepat) Ajit Balaji Joshi said that
water could reach Sonepat at any time after midnight tonight.
Moderate to heavy rains continued to lash most places in
Punjab and Haryana, with water-level of the already swollen
Yamuna further increasing today.
All necessary arrangements have been made by the district
administration to control the situation, he said.
Meanwhile, Irrigation Department (Haryana) Engineer-in-
Chief Harmail Singh said that there is no storage dam on river
Yamuna and any flood water that comes to Hathni Kund Barrage
passes downstream.
Therefore, water cannot be stored at the barrage and the
state has no role to control the flood water, he said while
reacting to some media reports that Haryana was releasing
water which caused floods in Delhi.
Heavy rains during the last few days in the catchment
area of Yamuna, Markanda and Ghaggar rivers have caused heavy
discharge of water at Hathni Kund Barrage, he said.
District administrations of Yamunanagar, Karnal, Sonepat,
Panipat, Faridabad and Palwal have been alerted, while state
irrigation officials are keeping constant vigil on the
embankments of Yamuna.
Sonepat district had been divided into twenty sectors to
keep a vigil on the rising water-level in Yamuna, he said.
A control room has also been set up in the office of
Deputy Commissioner to give information about rising level of
water in Yamuna.
Deputy Commissioner, Faridabad, has also asked people
living along Yamuna to be alert, as the water released today
would enter the boundaries of Faridabad after 60 hours.
The peak discharge of about 3.25 lakh cusecs of water,
which is the highest discharge of this monsoon season, would
reach Karnal by tomorrow morning.
Flood water also entered Shahbad feeder near village
Subri, Rajokheri and Ugala in Shahbad area near Kurukshetra
and flooded the agricultural area on the way.
The water will ultimately flow towards Saraswati river
creak and would go to Bibipur lake, Singh added.
PTI
