Real-time telemetering to study if farmers are giving up groundwater

Chandigarh: It would soon be possible to quantify if the campaign to dissuade farmers from the use of groundwater for irrigation is bearing fruit. The state government has decided to install a real-time telemetering system to gauge the usage of treated water from sewage treatment plants (STP) for irrigation in comparison to the harmful practice of overreliance of tubewells.
The Punjab soil and water conservation department has tied up with Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) for the project and it will be jointly implemented by the varsity’s departments of agronomy, soil conservation and the remote sensing centre. The findings will help in better policy formulation for the irrigation schemes. “The project is aimed at impacting the assessment of the scheme for irrigation using treated water and will begin soon. As per the plan, telemetry-based systems will be installed – both on the network of treated water supply from a particular STP and the tubewells functional in that area. It will show patterns of water usage by farmers from the two sources by drawing a comparison over a period of time, thereby indicating whether farmers have switched from using groundwater to treated water and at what pace,” said an official.
Besides, soil health of the fields that have been using treated water will also be studied as part of the project. “Though farmers who have been using water supply from STPs have claimed that treated water use comes with the benefit of less reliance on fertilisers, the PAU will now study soil health patterns to establish this,’ added the official.
Dipping water table due to excessive use for irrigation has become a major concern in recent years. In 1961, the number of tubewells in Punjab was only 7,445. This has risen to around 1.5 million in 2021, mainly due to the adoption of this technology. With the fast depleting water table, the number of submersible motors also increased from 6,19,197 (56.68 per cent) in 2009 to 9,78,874 (72.42 per cent) in 2017. Free supply of electricity to farm sectors have encouraged farmers to use groundwater even in areas where the option of canal water is available.
The emergence of paddy as a major crop led to heavy dependence on subsoil water and a manifold increase in the number of tubewells. The area under paddy in Punjab has gone up from 2.27 lakh hectares in 1960-61 to 29.7 lakh hectares in 2015-16. The high yielding variety seeds come with higher responsiveness to water and chemical fertilisers.