CHANDIGARH: Farmers in Punjab bought less diesel this time to run their tube wells to irrigate the paddy crop, due to a normal monsoon and the soaring price of the fuel. Punjab has the highest concentration of petrol stations in the country.
Inadequate rainfall in the past few years had increased the farmers’ dependence on groundwater, which irrigates 73 per cent of the land in Punjab. As per the Central Ground Water Board, of the 138 blocks in Punjab, 110 are overexploited, four are critical and two are semi-critical. Thus only 22 blocks are safe, but they have other problems, such as arsenic, fluoride and uranium contamination.
Onkar Singh Agaul, Secretary of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Rajowal), told The Sunday Standard that due to better rainfall in most parts of Punjab, farmers had not used diesel generators much to pump water from tube wells to irrigate the paddy crop.
In the past, due to insufficient rains, diesel generators were used extensively for irrigation. On average, farmers used to spend Rs 1,000 on diesel to irrigate each acre of their field. But this year, in July and August, they spent just Rs 500 per acre on diesel. Tube wells were used for irrigation only in June, when the crop was sowed.
“We have been demanding that farmers should be given subsidy on diesel as the input costs of agriculture are increasing day by day. Diesel prices have increased many times in the last two years,” Agaul said.
There are 1.50 lakh diesel-operated tube wells in the state, besides 13.50 lakh tube wells which run on electricity. This season, paddy has been sown on 29.57 lakh hectares in the state, and this figure is likely to touch 30 lakh hectares. Last year, 30.07 lakh hectares were under paddy.
The monsoon this year has been normal, according to the met department. “Overall rainfall in the region has been normal. It was normal in 2011, and now, after seven years, it has been the same,” said Surender Paul, director of the meteorological centre in Chandigarh.