Heart of Punjab: State inches closer to desertification

More than five years after the Central Ground Water Board (North-Western region) warned that ‘Punjab will turn into a desert within 25 years if exploitation of its underground water continues at the current rate’, farmers are digging deeper to extract water through borewells.

The government has failed to encourage crop diversification as farmers get minimum support price (MSP) on wheat and paddy crops, which they consider as a safe bet to take care of their life and loans.

For reference, it takes 3,000 to 5,000 litres of water to produce one kg of rice and only 500 litres is required for one kg of potato.

At present, the water level has fallen to more than 600 feet in several parts of the state.

It’s been two years since Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann visited Telangana and made the announcement of exploring the feasibility of replicating the Telangana model for conservation of groundwater.

He specified his mission for recharging groundwater in Punjab. As of today, nothing worth a mention has happened on the ground.

The 2019 report pointed out that “at the current rate of extraction, all available groundwater resources till the depth of 300 metres in the state will finish between 20 and 25 years. All available groundwater resources at a depth of 100 metres will end within 10 years”.

A Punjab Agricultural University study related to groundwater fluctuations over a span of 28 years (1988-2016) highlighted an average fall of 51 cm annually. Reports by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, have expressed concern over non-renewable loss in groundwater volume.

The CGWB report of 2022 underlined the delay in the attention being paid to the dwindling groundwater levels. The groundwater extraction here is the highest in the country. The state is extracting 27.64 million acre feet (MAF) of water reserves annually against their annual recharge of 16.81 MAF.

In Punjab, only 18 of 180 blocks fall in the safe zone of extraction, rest all are overdrawing groundwater. The data revealed that 10 blocks used more than 300% of its annual recharge levels, 16 used more than 250% and 33 blocks extracted more than 200% of the subsurface annual water recharge.

The state government has from time to time chalked out different strategies to tackle depleting groundwater levels. These include drip irrigation, introduction of water-efficient crops, and regulating tubewell usage.

So far, the government’s efforts have not yielded the desired results. Thus, greater participation is needed by farmers. The government needs to organise more awareness campaigns to educate farmers about the critical water situation. It also needs to work on increasing the reuse of waste water from urban areas. Experts point out that a prudent use of surface water, during monsoon, can be of great help.

Experts have always suggested that greater use of canal water will save underground water. The canals, however, have not delivered the expected results. The area under canal irrigation in Punjab has decreased because the water does not reach the tail end.

Nowadays, the government is engaged in cleaning and expanding the Sirhind canal for provide water to tail end villages in Abohar. The project envisages increasing canal capacity from Ropar to Abohar from 12,000 cusecs to 15,600 cusecs.

On the ground, there are disturbing images of residents fighting for water. A group of protestors under the banner of the Jal Jeevan Bachao Morcha in Faridkot alleged that the concrete lining of the canal would lead to a drastic fall in groundwater levels, leaving a large number of residents without access to potable water.

Residents of Macchiwara in Ludhiana protested widening of the canal fearing that it would turn the green belt into barren land.

Lacchman Singh, a 100-year-old farmer from Jandwala village near Fazilka, said, “Water has been one of the biggest reasons of fight among farmers. I fear worrying times ahead.” There can be little argument over the fact that Punjab is more than late in saving the vanishing treasure from the earth.