AAP govt sanctions Rs 4,573 crore for cleaning 15,000 ponds in 13,500 Punjab villages

Punjab’s Aam Aadmi Party government has launched an ambitious project to clean 15,000 ponds (chappars) in the 13,500 villages of the state.

A sum of Rs 4,573 crore has been earmarked for the same, said Rural Development and Panchayats minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond.

“A soft launch of the project was done a fortnight ago and we have dewatered and desilted 1,100 of these village ponds. The project will now be launched across the state, after the entire wheat crop has been harvested and the water in the ponds can be released into the adjoining vacant fields,” he said.

The government proposes to follow the Seechewal Model, Thapar Model and the model approved by Punjab Pollution Control Board, for cleaning and rebuilding the ponds.

“The ponds will first be dewatered, the desilting work done and then a proper scientific method of cleaning all water of impurities before it percolates into the ground will be developed. This will be done by collecting water in a separate chamber, cleaning it in the next and storing it in the third,” he said.

He added that in case the ponds have been dug too deep, the ponds will be resilted.

The minister claimed that this was the first time that any government in Punjab had undertaken a project to clean the village ponds. For many years now, residents of villages across the state have been complaining about overflowing ponds and these not being cleaned.

“No other government thought of doing so. But we were pained seeing people in villages suffer and have decided to launch this project,” he said.

Punjab