Vanishing choes of Punjab

A Tribune report by Ajay Banerjee

Hundreds of ecologically-fragile seasonal rivulets (choes) criss-crossing the Shivalik foothills in Punjab are slowly vanishing. Land-hungry people are either buying the rights of riverbeds from poor villagers, or illegally occupying the same to build farmhouses for themselves.
This unusual phenomena of using the river beds to build farmhouses is a silent operation being carried out in the Shivalik foothills, running across the districts of Mohali, Ropar, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur. There seems to be little official hindrance to this activities. In fact, official connivance in these activities is openly being alleged.
Thousands of acres of land that form the river bed of these numerous choes is being blatantly turned into a "farmhouse" belt with high sounding and attractive names such as "silent valley" , "hidden valley" or "peace farm".
Several palatial farmhouse have come up on river beds as many choes have dried up after dams under World Bank-aided projects harnessed the waters in the hills. The process of building the dams was completed about five -six years ago. The choes once carried torrents of water down the Shivaliks during the rainy season, causing widespread destruction.
Today, these virtually hold no threat of washing away anything as the release of water is now controlled at the dams. Only small amount of water flows in these choes due to local rain.
With the fear of water gone, these river beds are the cheapest possible lands available in Punjab, where otherwise, land prices are skyrocketing and have touched nearly Rs 1 crore an acre along main roads and near urban areas.
A Tribune team travelling along the foothills found that land on the river bed is available at anything between Rs 10 lakh an acre to Rs 25 lakh an acre, depending upon the location from major urban centres.
The Tribune team captured 15 to 20 such farmhouses on camera. At a place near Khirzabad, near Chandigarh, some owners have set up abutments to keep out water. At another place near Jayanti Majri, right at the base of hill in Mohali district, a farmhouse has been divided into two parts, one on the either side of the choe.
For safety, concrete walls have been built that can protect even if excess water is released from the dam upstream. At places tractor-trailers could be seen levelling areas on the river bed.
Explaining how the system works, sources said the land in the riverbeds was either common land of the villagers or was government property.
The owners, even if it happens to be the panchayat of the village, can sell their share to an individual. In case of government lands these cannot be sold or occupied. In its typical lackadaisical approach, the government has not even carried out a survey to identify its lands and the illegal occupation.
With the choes having dried up there is no policy on land use and all area that once formed the river bed is still classified as such.
The biggest loss is of ecology and of the natural habitat of small animals like tortoise, reptiles and birds. The Punjab Environment Report, 2005, which quotes a study by the Zoological Survey of India, says the numbers of several species in the Shivaliks was dropping fast as their habitat was vanishing.