Shahid Ali
SEEPAN: “Does it have to wash away our entire villages for the government to act,” says Ghulam Rasool Sheikh, as he sits aside the river Lidder in Seepan village.
The roaring river, born of the Kolohoi glaciers in the magnificient Himalayas, snakes its way down along hamlets and towns before merging with the river Jhelum.
But Seepan, in Anantnag district, falls at the 70 km mark and Mr Sheikh, the village elder here, is worried.
The Lidder has slowly been devouring his hamlet and others – “inch by inch”, he says. “Earlier we would walk a distance to go to the river. Now it is just nearby. We haven’t gone to it, it has come to us.”
Mr Sheikh says the inundated land, nearly 300 kanals, were mostly rice fields.
The Lidder river, known to be a favourite for white-water rafters, is the main source of water for all the inhabited areas that it traverses along its route.
But it’s fierce gush, that has claimed many a rafter in the past, is also gulping land as it moves with pride. In Anantnag district for example, Seepan, Matipora, Adder and Chee villages face a serious threat.
Earlier we would walk a distance to go to the river. Now it is just nearby. We haven’t gone to it, it has come to us.
“In my village the water has taken in 10 kanals. There was a concrete bridge here, the river did not spare even that,” says Asif Ahmed Dar, a postgraduate student in Chee.
The authorities are well aware of all this and every year in late Autumn, when the river’s anger cools down and water level recedes, it constructs boulder embankments on the edges.
But each time the mark is different, more closer to the village.
“We are continuously making efforts to reduce the flow of river by digging it bed and also by making separate canals alongside,” says Ravinder Kumar Gupta, Executive Engineer of the Flood Control Department.
“Apart from that, the embankments save the land from further erosion.” But residents are demanding a permanent solution to the problem.
Mr Gupta says a project of Rs 25 crore was sanctioned in a state-level meeting for the anti-erosion work in the affected villages a long time ago.
The plan is still awaiting approval from the Central government.
