The North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) executive director, Satnam Singh Chahal, strongly believes that the recent floods in Punjab cannot be dismissed as natural calamities. Heavy rains may have triggered the situation, but the scale of destruction makes it clear that these are primarily manmade disasters, caused by negligence, poor planning, and failure of governance.
In Indian Punjab, nearly 2,000 villages have been affected, with crops destroyed on 1.75 lakh hectares of farmland. More than 3.87 lakh people have been impacted, and the death toll has reached 46. The Punjab government has estimated the total economic losses at around ₹14,000 crore, with agriculture alone suffering damages worth ₹1,858 crore, in addition to heavy losses to water resources, health, infrastructure, and education sectors. This is being described as the worst flood in almost five decades. These figures show that it is not rainfall alone, but mismanagement of dams, poor maintenance of embankments, and unchecked encroachments on natural water channels that caused such widespread devastation.
The tragedy in Pakistani Punjab is even more alarming. More than 8,400 villages have been submerged, 10.5 lakh acres of farmland destroyed, and nearly 5.1 million residents directly affected. Rescue operations have had to save over 1.9 million people, while at least 66 people lost their lives in Punjab province. Across Pakistan, the overall floods have killed more than 850 people. Reports confirm that sudden and uncoordinated dam releases upstream, combined with weak flood defenses and encroachments, turned the situation into the biggest flood disaster in Punjab’s history.
When comparing the two regions, the scale of destruction highlights the manmade nature of these disasters. In Indian Punjab, the losses amount to ₹14,000 crore, with thousands of villages and lakhs of hectares of farmland destroyed. In Pakistani Punjab, the numbers are even higher, with 8,400 villages submerged, millions of people displaced, and over 10 lakh acres of farmland washed away. While the exact figures may differ, the common thread remains the same: encroachment, negligence, corruption, and unplanned water management have magnified the rains into massive human tragedies on both sides of Punjab.
NAPA emphasizes that these shocking figures prove floods in Punjab are not simply the work of nature. Instead, they are the result of encroachment on rivers, blocked drainage systems, corruption in flood-control projects, and human mismanagement of water resources. Climate change may have increased rainfall intensity, but it is human negligence that has turned natural rain into such deadly and costly calamities.
Chahal appeals to the governments of India and Pakistan, as well as international agencies, to recognize that unless systemic reforms are made in dam management, river protection, and urban planning, the people of Punjab will continue to suffer from manmade floods every monsoon.