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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Drained by that sinking tilling-Sukhdeep Kaur
-The Indian Express

Punjab has not missed the monsoon. Despite rainfall being nearly 60 per cent deficient — there has been some this week — the paddy fields have remained lush green all through the season.

But below, the water table in over 80 per cent of Punjab is depleting. Of 138 hydrogeological blocks, over 100 are listed as dark or grey zones due to over-exploitation of underground water, with the average decline statewide ranging between 50 and 100cm a year.

In April, the Central Ground Water Board banned new bores in 18 blocks that had crossed the classification of “critical” and “over-exploited”. After the green revolution of the 1970s, as Punjab raised bountiful harvests, almost 97 per cent of its sown area gradually came under assured irrigation. Of this, 73 per cent is fed by diesel and electric tubewells that sustain its water-guzzling paddy crop. But the CGWB sounded a warning and later the advisory Punjab Farmers Commission prompted the state to enact the Punjab Preservation of Sub-soil Water Act in 2009, banning transplantation of paddy before June 10.

A potentially bigger threat remains. According to the agriculture department, nearly 35,000 pumps have been going underground each year over the last four or five years, replacing shallow or mono-block pumps that rest on the surface or in pits. And it has been happening in already dark zones — kandi areas and the central districts — where paddy farmers need groundwater the most when it is at a low.

In the poor monsoon this year, central districts have witnessed brisker sales of deep pumps. In an estimate submitted to visiting union ministers Sharad Pawar and Jairam Ramesh, the Punjab Agriculture Department pegged the new deep pumps this year at 50,000.

In the last few years, submersible pumps have reached almost twice the number of traditional ones. “As per figures compiled by the Punjab State Power Corporation, as on March 31, 2012, the number of submersible pumps was 7.49 lakh, against 4.13 lakh mono-block pumps that are now confined to shallow areas of southwest Punjab and near the riverbeds,” says Kanwarpal Singh, joint director, agriculture. Add this year’s 50,000 and the total would be close to 8 lakh.

Another fallout is on the free power bill. In its demand for drought relief of Rs 5,118 crore, Punjab has factored in Rs 300 crore for power to an additional 15,000 submersible pumps purchased by farmers. Balwinder Singh Sidhu, a former agriculture director and currently the adviser in the department, explains: “On an average, free power to a submersible pump costs the state nearly Rs 2 lakh for the paddy months. The additional 15,000 pumps will cost another Rs 300 crore.” The free power bill is set to touch Rs 5,200 crore this year.

Though power is free, the new pumps are still digging a hole in farmers’ pockets. “Against Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 that a mono-block costs, the cost of a submersible pump depends on how deep it goes into the ground. So a farmer may have to shell out anything between Rs 70,000 to Rs 3.5 lakh, the cost being steepest in the kandi area,” says Punjab Farmers Commission adviser P S Rangi.

The damage, he says, is irreversible. “Rainwater can recharge groundwater up to 80-90 feet. But pumps are going up to 300-400 feet.”

Another worry is the wanton use of chemical fertilisers that has contaminated waterbodies and groundwater in many districts. Uranium and arsenic too have been found in water of late. Pawar and Ramesh have asked Punjab to dissuade farmers from growing paddy and encourage them to diversify.

“A major focus of the new agriculture policy will be reducing area under paddy. This will not only help preserve the depleting groundwater but also help make agriculture sustainable for small and marginal farmers,” says adviser Sidhu.