Minister of State for Cooperation, Krishan Pal Gurjar, has said that illegal mining is one of the major reasons for breaches in bundhs and flooding in many areas of Punjab.
He alleged that local people have told him that people in power are themselves involved in mining. The Minister, who is on a visit to Punjab to look into the damage done due to floods in the state, visited some flood-affected areas of Rupnagar district and said that the 1,600 crores already announced as a relief package for the state is an initial relief.
More money would be released when the Punjab government sends a complete assessment report. He assured the Centre is supporting the state government in this hour of crisis.
He said if the Punjab government had used the 12,000 crore rupees already lying with the state under the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF), at an appropriate time and place, the damage done by floods would have been less. Mr Gurjar said that it is the duty of the state government to strengthen the bundhs and get them cleaned along with the rivulets.
A day after CM Bhagwant Mann claimed Punjab received only Rs 1,582 crore as the central government’s contribution to the SDRF since April 2022, state BJP chief Sunil Jakhar challenged this claim afresh Saturday.
Taking to X, Jakhar shared a 2024 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to suggest that Punjab’s disaster relief fund had Rs 9,041 crore as on 31 March, 2023. Mann made no mention of these funds in his press conference the previous day, where he gave an year-wise breakdown of SDRF funds—central allocations and state spending.
Punjab, Mann said, spent Rs 649 crore of the Rs 1,582 crore allocated to it between 10 September, 2025, and 1 April, 2022 when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power.
Countering Mann’s claim, Jakhar wrote on X that funds from the SDRF were “lying unused” with the Punjab government. He then cited the CAG report, for the year ended 31 March 2023, to suggest that Punjab had Rs 9,041.74 crore in SDRF funds, and the state government “violated central government rules by not investing these funds appropriately”.
