M A I N   N E W S

Relief a cruel joke, say farmers
Chander Parkash
Tribune News Service

Dhipali (Bathinda), August 5
“We have spent about Rs 600 per acre on transplanting paddy. Thousands have been spent on fertilisers, insecticides and running tubewells. Similarly, thousands have been spent on the cotton crop. The Punjab Government has announced a relief of only Rs 700 per acre where both these crops have been damaged. Is it a joke or is the state government serious about our woes?” said a group of hard-pressed farmers at this village when this reporter talked to them today.

They alleged that instead of visiting them at a time when they were facing hardships due to successive failure of crops, their elected representatives had started avoiding them. The Punjab Government had added insult to their injury by announcing a meagre relief of Rs 700 per acre which was only 20 to 25 per cent of the amount they had spent on their paddy and cotton crops so far.

Not only this, farmers, who had applied for tubewell connections about two to three years ago have been running from pillar to post to get these sanctioned, but most of them are a disappointed lot as senior officials of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) have allegedly been giving priority to those having political connections.

Farmers in areas where the water level has gone down, have been facing various problems to get permission for deepening wells.

To arrange adequate water for irrigation, debt-ridden farmers have been forced to shell out more money from their pockets to deepen their wells and to replace the earlier tubewells with submersible pumps. The increase in the cost of diesel has forced them to take loans at exorbitant rates of interest from money lenders and private financiers.

“How can the government announce relief without holding a “girdawari” for assessing it. The action of the government in announcing relief without holding an inquiry is a mere eyewash and farmers have been left to their fate,” alleged Gurdev Singh, whose paddy in about 2.5 acres has been damaged due to inadequate water for irrigation. He added that had there been a normal monsoon, paddy crop in one acre would have fetched farmers between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 by spending about Rs 5000.

Binder Singh, another farmer, pointed out that from past experiences, it could be said with certainty that affected farmers would only get about Rs 400 as relief as the remaining money would be eaten up by distributing agencies. He added that no minister or MLA had taken any step so far to arrange adequate water for canals and distributaries criss-crossing the region so that farmers could get some relief as in most pockets, the tubewell water was unfit for agriculture purposes.

In Maur Mandi, Talwandi Sabo and Sangat pockets, where irrigation water is a perpetual problem. A majority of the farmers, who have sown “guara” and groundnut seeds after their paddy and cotton crops were damaged, have again started ploughing their fields as the guara and groundnut crops have also been damaged.