Canal water scarce, farmers up in arms

Our Correspondent

Fazilka, July 16

Farmers of five villages staged a demonstration outside the office of Fazilka Deputy Commissioner on Monday against the scarcity of canal-based irrigation water at tail-end villages. A young farmer of Ramkot village, Davinder Kumar, has begun indefinite fast to lodge a protest.

Gurmeet Singh Brar, who led the demonstration, said farmers of five villages — Shajrana, Khui Khera, Ramkot, Bodiwala Pitha and Ghallu — gathered before the DC office and expressed their anguish over the shortage of water.

Hundreds of farmers of these villages are dependent on the Kamalwala minor for irrigating their standing gwar, cotton and paddy crops. “Due to the scarcity of water in Kamalawala canal, their standing crops have started dying,” said Om Parkash, a farmer.

“Most of these villages face waterlogging, due to which the subsoil water is not fit for irrigation,” said Dev Raj.

Kuldeep Singh, sarpanch of Ramkot village, alleged that the villagers had not been getting the full share of water for about four decades as a result of which most of the farmers have put their land on sale. He alleged that the farmers are not able to repay their debt too.

Mohan Lal and Kanwal Sandhu alleged that the theft of water was also on the rise at some places, resulting in the shortage of water at the tail-end of the canal. They submitted a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, demanding a fair share of water.

The farmers said they had brought the matter into the notice of senior civil and canal department officials, but to no avail. Pawan Bishnoi, SDO, canal department, said due to the paucity of water, the supply was done on rotation. As per the schedule, the water would be supplied for three weeks in a month.