Chandigarh, April 17
The Punjab Governor has signed the ordinance, clearing the decks for regulating use of sub- soil water for paddy sowing in the state. After the signing of the ordinance by the Governor, Raj Bhavan returned it to the government today morning.
Ordinance had been sent to the authorities concerned for notification to make it enforceable in the state.With the ordinance becoming operational, no farmer will be able to grow nursery of paddy before May 10 and transplant it before June 15, the rules for which will be framed by the Agriculture Department.
Farmers can be fined up to Rs 10,000 for violating the provisions made of the ordinance. And there is also provision to plough the paddy transplanted by farmers violating the cut off dates laid down in the ordinance.
In absence of any law, farmers for several years had been competing with each other to grow paddy early and in the process were utilising more and more of subsoil water to nurse the crop. There are about 10 lakh tube wells which pump sub soil water mainly to irrigate paddy crop.
Though the Punjab Farmers Commission as well as Punjab Agricultural
University ( PAU) have been pressing farmers not to sow the paddy nurseries and crop before the dates recommended by PAU experts no one was heeding to such recommendations. Farmers have been recklessly exploiting subsoil water , leading to its fall at a rapid pace. In fact, already 108 blocks in Punjab have been declared ‘dark’, meaning replenishment of water in such blocks is far less than its pumping out.
Former vice-chancellor, PAU, Dr Khem Singh Gill, had urged the state government in 90s to regulate transplantation of paddy. However, the government took 18 years, to takema decision in this regard. Farmers’ Commission chairman Dr G.S. Kalkat also favoured a law to regulate paddy crop.
