Punjab: ‘Early paddy transplantation likely to worsen water crisis’

The state is staring at faster depletion of groundwater with nearly 14 lakh tubewells likely to pump out billions of litres of extra water for irrigation after the government allowed paddy transplantation from June 1.

The crop is cultivated on 31 lakh hectares in the state, of which 73 per cent is irrigated by tubewells.

Since 2014, the transplantation of the water-guzzling crop usually started on June 15, a move aimed at reducing stress on groundwater by factoring in the monsoon season.

The advancing of the date has already drawn criticism from various quarters, especially agriculture experts, who flagged fears of rapid desertification of the state if the groundwater exploitation continues at the present rate.

Experts have advocated pushing paddy transplantation beyond June 20 as the crop needs huge amount of water throughout the irrigation period that lasts till September-end.

According to official data, every tubewell extracts 30.24 lakh litres of groundwater per week with an average eight hours of power supply.

This means the 14 lakh tubewells are likely to pump out 4,385 billion litres of groundwater per week.

Punjab State Power Corporation Limited figures show 13.94 lakh tubewell connections in Punjab, a majority of which are located in the districts with overexploited groundwater.

According to data prepared by the PSPCL, Ludhiana has the most tubewells (1.17 lakh) followed by Gurdaspur (99,581), Amritsar (93,946), Sangrur (93,669), Patiala (87,788), Jalandhar (87,784) and Ferozepur (86,098).

Of 150 assessed blocks in Punjab, the Central Ground Water Assessment Board’s report categorised 114 (76.47 per cent) as ‘over exploited’.

Power subsidy bill to soar too

A PSPCL official said the advancing of the date is likely to push the power subsidy bill of the government, which has set aside a whopping Rs 20,500 crore for it in the current fiscal.

Nearly 10 per cent of the state’s total budget is allocated to providing free power to various consumers out of which free electricity to farmers for tubewell operations will cost nearly Rs 10,000 crore — the highest subsidy allocation for any sector.

The official said the state is likely to touch the peak power demand of 17,500 MW from June 4.

The official said average power subsidy in Punjab is around Rs 10,000 per acre annually.

This goes up as high as Rs 20,000 per acre in areas like Sangrur, Barnala and Patiala, where water depletion rate had been historically high.