Amid poll heat, farm issues pushed to the backburner in Punjab

Gurdeep Singh of Nangli village in Amritsar is a busy man these days. With wheat harvesting complete, it is time to prepare his field for the next crop cycle. He has already taken care of the stubble -- as is apparent from the ashen remains of wheat residue around him -- and now he is flooding the field to prepare for paddy transplantation.

“The groundwater will never finish, it is a natural resource,” he says confidently while sitting on a tubewell which he is using to irrigate his field.

Sights like these – stubble burning and indiscriminate use of tubewells-- are a common sight in Punjab’s villages these days.

But as politicians and administration officials remain busy with the elections, farm and environmental issues have taken a back seat.

“The entire government machinery is busy with poll duty so there is no one to keep tabs on farm fires,” says a Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) official.

The PPCB has recorded 11,434 cases of wheat stubble burning since April 15, with the figures expected to go further up by the end of May.

“There is still a week to go (for the wheat harvest season to end). We are expecting the stubble burning count to touch the 14,000-mark as was seen in 2022,” the PPCB official quoted above revealed.

Harminder Singh of Khabey Rajputtan village in Amritsar, says that a number of politicians came to his village to seek votes, but no one spoke of the issues that matter. “Koi politician fasal atey nasal di gal nahi karr reha, oho apney jhagriyan vich fasey hann” (no politician talks of crop or youth, they are busy fighting on petty matters),” he says.

Harjinder Singh, a farmer of Buttar village in Moga says, “The falling water table is also a major concern, but no one is talking about it.”

A graduate working at a privately owned sugarmill in the area, Harjinder says that the agriculture department has been pushing for direct seeding of rice (DSR), which can reduce water consumption and production costs by at least 15-20%, but farmers continue to stick to the traditional method.

“Many farmers have also switched to the cultivation of spring maize, which consumes even more water than paddy, as its remunerative value is higher,” he said, adding that a section of farmers in his village tried to sensitise other farmers but with little success.

As per a Niti Aayog report, out of 146 blocks in Punjab, 109 have turned dark which means the ground water usage is more than the recharge annually. Punjab sees an average drop of at least a metre in its ground water levels every year, the report further stated.

Retired IAS officer KS Pannu, who has formed a water conservation group for Punjab, says, “All politicians should include farm and environment issues in their manifestos but sadly no one is doing it.”

His group is trying to get the government to push paddy transplantation to June 20 and impose a total ban on long-duration PUSA 44 variety of paddy. “But the state government has decided to start paddy transplantation from June 15,” he says.

182 farm fires in a single day

With 11, 630 farm fires recorded in Punjab this season, the count has already surpassed last year’s figure of 11, 351, on Friday alone, the state logged 182 fresh cases. Three districts of the Majha belt – Gurdaspur (1,310), Amritsar (992) and Tarn Taran (970) have recorded the highest number of farm fires this season. Malwa’s Ferozepur district has recorded 905 cases which is at number four in the list. So far, 132 lakh tonnes of wheat have arrived in the mandis of Punjab out of which 124.36 lakh tonne have been procured by the state agencies and rest by private traders.