Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 31

Amid labour shortage and depleting underground water table, farmers are all geared up to sow paddy when the season begins officially on June 10.

Delay process to save water table

The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) claims that they are all prepared to meet the expected power demand target of 14,000 MW with an eight-hour supply for tube wells daily. “The field staff has been informed and uninterrupted power supply to the agriculture sector will be provided,” said PSPCL Chairman A Venu Prasad.

With over 15 lakh tubewells extracting water for paddy, experts say groundwater was falling by 1 metre per annum and early sowing of paddy would only “put extra pressure on the soil”. In 2018, reports submitted to the NGT by an expert committee suggested that if transplantation was delayed by a week, the state could meet the demand for water of its 3 crore population for over 3.5 years.

As per the committee, there are 14.5 lakh tubewells in the state. Every tubewell pumps out 30.24-lakh litre water per week with an average eight hours of power supply. This means that 14.5 lakh tubewells pump out 4,385-billion litre water per week, which will be sufficient to meet the state’s demand for 3.64 years if transplantation is delayed by a week.

The PPCB, too, advocated that the government should amend the Punjab Preservation of Sub-Soil Water Act, 2009, and make June 25 as the official date for paddy sowing. In 2014, the state had issued an advisory to farmers to not transplant saplings before June 15. Earlier, the date was June 1, which was postponed to ensure more dependency on rainwater.

The area under paddy was around 26 lakh hectares in 2005 but increased to 30.5 lakh hectares in 2016 and delaying paddy transplantation to June 15 helped in checking the depleting water table.

Already over 108 blocks in the state are under the “dark zone” (where water table has fallen drastically) because of the increasing area under paddy.