Water hyacinth blocks river bridge flooding, inundating hundreds of acres of cropland across five villages

PILIBHIT: The farmers of the Gajraula area in Pilibhit are confronting a situation of heavy waterlogging in their cropped fields caused by the blockage in the flow of the Mala River’s water through its bridge.

The river water flow has been blocked by abundant water hyacinth and other weeds that were drifted towards the bridge by the floodwater.The local farmers Shyam Charan, Chheda Lal, Kulwant Singh, Munish Pal, Mangle Prasad, and Jagpreet Singh, of the Gajraula, Pindra, Binaur, Nachni Ghat, and Baijunagar villages, alleged that a new bridge on the Mala River was built a year ago on the Gajraula-Shivnagar road, the height of which was kept extremely low.

The heaps of water hyacinth consequently blocked the spans between the bridge’s piers. The farmers alleged that they were not given any respite from the district administration despite timely information.

In the absence of any support, they are collecting money through personal contributions to hire a JCB unit to remove the accumulated water hyacinth.The farmers demonstrated against the administrative apathy in resolving the issue permanently, as they fear the same situation will replicate during next year’s monsoon season. The sub-divisional magistrate of Kalinagar tehsil, Mahipal Singh, said that the water hyacinth and weeds would soon be removed to ensure the discharge of the water from agricultural fields.

Regarding the demand of the farmers to increase the bridge’s height, the SDM said that this could be addressed by the state govt, for which a reference would be sent soon.In the village of Ramnagaria under the Gajraula police station, the floodwater of the Katna River is still flowing over the village causeway despite the river receding considerably at 3 PM on Sunday to the discharge level of 17000 cusecs from 30000 cusecs, as reported by the district flood control division at 12 PM on Saturday.The villagers alleged that a couple of years ago, a 7-kilometer-long road from Kanja Haraiyya up to Khag Sarai village was constructed under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana via village Ramnagaria, but the bad condition of the causeway was not made better. This created horrible conditions for the villagers to pass through the road.The district magistrate, Gyanendra Singh; the additional district magistrate, finance and revenue, Ritu Punia; and the SDMs distributed over 8000 flood relief kits to affected villagers in over 70 villages in the Kalinagar, Puranpur, Bisalpur, Amaria, and Pilibhit Sadar tehsil circles.