Water crisis looming, govt yet to wake up

Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 6

Though the Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers’ Commission had submitted a draft of agriculture policy addressing groundwater crisis in detail to the government in July last year, it is gathering dust in government files.

The draft policy had mentioned that a region specific primary ecological constraint has emerged in the form of falling water table. “The extraction of water is becoming ecologically and economically unsustainable. Even worse, problems of severe waterlogging and soil salinisation are emerging in the south-western parts of Punjab.”

The main culprit behind the falling water table is the state policy of free power for agriculture in combination with Central policy favourable to paddy cultivation, which paved the way for indiscriminate use of groundwater. The commission had also recommended “a dire need to diversify away from paddy.”

Besides, to address the water crisis in the state, the policy draft had 15 important recommendations. It included stopping free power to rich farmers, preparing a state water policy, introducing water-efficient technologies for irrigation, use abiana (water charges) for maintenance of canal irrigation system, promoting restoration of storage capacity of natural and manmade water bodies, recycling of waste water for irrigation etc.

The policy was drafted in consultation with all the stakeholders, including farmer and agricultural labour organisations. However, in the past one year, the government is “sitting” on the draft.

Situation Precarious

• From just 70,000 tubewells in early 80s, their number increased to 12 lakh in the last decade. On an average, there are 34 tubewells per sq km of net sown area in Punjab.
• This has resulted in 110 out of 148 blocks being overexploited for groundwater.
• On an average water table is going down at the rate of 0.37 m every year.
• Groundwater extraction has increased from 149% of the total recharge in 2013 to 165% last year.