Fearing backlash, dept reluctant to recover canal water charges

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, December 9

Fearing crop damage and backlash from farmer unions, the Irrigation Department seems unwilling to collect “abiana” (canal water charges) from farmers. Since the kharif 2014 crop season, department officials have collected just about Rs 1 crore from farmers in the Abohar canal division, which partially covers Muktsar and Fazilka districts, having nearly 7 lakh acres of command area.

However, the total outstanding is nearly Rs 25 crore and that too for crops of kharif 2014 to 2017, consisting of a total of six crops. Further, the department is yet to prepare the records for kharif seasons from 2017 to 2018, which includes the last two crops.

Mukhtiar Singh, Executive Engineer, Irrigation department, Canal Division, Abohar, said, “Earlier, the ‘abiana’ was Rs 100 per crop per year. However, the Congress, after coming to power, reduced it by fixing Rs 50 per crop per year. Still, the farmers are unwilling to pay these charges. We have collected Rs 1.06 crore from kharif 2014 to kharif 2017. We are yet to collect dues of Rs 24.86 crore of kharif crops from 2014 to 2017. Further, the calculation of total charges of the next two crops is yet to be done. It is a time-consuming exercise as our records are to be matched with those of the Revenue Department.”

Asked whether they had any powers to impose penalty on non-paying farmers, he said, “As per the Canal Act, we are empowered to cut the water supply turn of a non-paying farmer. However, we can’t do this as it results in crop damage.”

Meanwhile, Jagdev Singh, a farmer leader, said, “Department officials have found a way to collect ‘abiana’ from farmers. If the farmer has any problem or work related to the canals division of the Irrigation Department, the work is done only after he pays abiana and clears the dues.”

He, however, said, “It is wrong to charge abiana for a period before the Congress rule as the previous SAD-BJP government did not charge it.”

The Executive Engineer said, “We don’t have anything in writing that the ‘abiana’ was waived during the Akali regime. Some people are just trying to create confusion.”