Sangrur, August 17
The price of agricultural land has crashed in Malwa due to drought.
Farmers say the prices have fallen between 15 and 20 per cent per acre. The prices may fall further if the dry spell continues.
In normal times, an acre irrigated by canal water or tubewell used to fetch a price between Rs 2.25 lakh and 2.50 lakh. However, now the price is less than Rs 2 lakh . The per acre rent of a good fertile piece of land is between Rs 10,000 and Rs 13,000.
There are more sellers than buyers, says Mr Balbir Singh, a resident of Dugga village near Dhanaula. Farmers have been borrowing heavily for the past several weeks from commission agents to procure diesel and for reinstalling tubewells. Marginal farmers have been hit hard and forced to sell the land.
Earlier, agricultural land, having an electricity-run tubewell system used to be the
first preference. But it is not so now. Preference has shifted to canal-irrigated land, says Mr Gurmail Singh.
To operate tubewells with diesel sets is a costly affair. Moreover as the sub-soil water table is dipping rapidly. Many farmers have to spend between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000 almost every alternative year to deepen the tubewell further.
There is so much demand of tubewell technicians that they work even at night. “People virtually forcibly take us from one place to other”, says Mr Avtar Singh, who was busy installing a tubewell at Sadarpur village near Channo. When asked how many new tubewells had been installed by him or existing ones deepened further. Mr Avtar Singh said that the number must be in hundreds. “Frankly speaking, I have not kept the count,” he adds. He charges Rs 4,000 for installing a tubewell and it takes him three days to do so.
Not only tubewells, but also thousands of hand pumps have become ineffective because of the fall in the sub-soil water table. There are about 500 houses in Dugga village. Almost all have hand pumps. However, at present, only 30 to 40 per cent pumps are functional. The situation is the same in the nearby Bahadurpur and other villages in the area.
“The government should provide community hand pumps for the poor”, says Mr Niranjan Singh. Earlier, the water boosting pump used to be installed at the 40 to 50 feet depth, but now it is put up at 60 feet to 70 feet depth, say farmers. Within the past two years, the water table has gone down between 10 feet to 15 feet in Sangrur district. And the most affected region is the Barnala-Cheema-Sunam belt.
The Sangrur-Barnala-Bathinda-Abohar belt is known as one of the most fertile area in the state. In fact, Sangrur district has been leading in paddy and wheat production for the past several years. However, this time the district might slip from that position in
