A visit to an oasis in the desert
By Peeyush Agnihotri

IT'S not without reason that Balachaur block has earned the sobriquet of being the "Barmer of Punjab." Parched lips, barren fields and anguished farmers , the setting in the cluster of villages here resembles the landscape of rural Rajasthan.

Not that the government did not make some altruistic gestures. It installed some deep tubewells in this block under a World Bank-aided project recently. Today, most of them are non-functional due to one reason or another. But that is another issue.

The result is that the villagers are in dire straits as the water crisis continues.

With such a forsaken land in the backdrop, Takarla, a small village of this block in Nawanshahr district, 80 km from Chandigarh, seems like an oasis in the desert. Date-palm trees, an indicator of sub-surface water, which dot the backwoods, lend more credence to this simile.

In 1986, an improvised effort was made to harness the sub-surface water from Sadhu Khad, a choe that flows nearby, covering 30 hectares of area by utilising its perennial flow, through a pipe with a diameter of six inches .

No major effort was required as the water flow followed the natural gravitational gradient.

The experiment was a success and in 1990, bigger pipes replaced the previous ones , thereby bringing 100 hectares of area under round-the-year irrigation.

Thus, a project, envied and emulated, was born. Currently, villagers are self-reliant. They have formed a water-users’ society and levy nominal water-use charges of Rs 4 per hour for maintaining the bucolic infrastructure themselves. No hassles of power break-down and no looking towards the government for lending a helping hand, either.

"I was forced to migrate with my family in 1965 as I could not make my both ends meet," says Hans Raj, lambardar of the village. "Then 25 years later, I returned, sceptical and unsure. I do not regret this decision at present," he adds. Hans Raj is a rich man now and enjoys all modern amenities. "Water brought prosperity for us," he comments philosophically.

Harbans Lal, the village headman, nods in agreement. "We harvest 13 to 14 quintals of wheat from an acre of land and get fodder for our livestocks round the year. The milk yield has also increased. So our village was doubly blessed by the Green and White revolutions," he says.

The villagers in the vicinity feel envious. Saab, Takarla taan ban giya Doaba (Sir, Takarla has been transformed to Doaba), says Ram Nath from the adjoining Thanewal village looking listlessly towards a 3 year old, now-defunct, deep tubewell installed by the State Tubewell Corporation. Ram Nath is already debt-ridden and harvests just 40 kg of shrivelled wheat from an acre, barely enough to keep him alive.

In fact, deep tubewells installed by the state agencies in the nearby villages suffer from one problem or the other. The tubewell at Thanewal, 2 km from Takarla, has a burnt-out motor and was used barely for three months in the past three years. The tubewell in Bullowal, installed by the Department of Agriculture, Punjab, is mired by red-tapism and is non-functional since the past four years. Underground pipes have allegedly been laid till halfway at the deep tubewell at Takarla village. Government apathy is at its worst.

"We would have died had we been dependent on these," laments Madan Lal, a farmer.

Dr S.S. Grewal, Associate Director, Regional Training Centre for Watershed Management, PAU, Ludhiana, says: "The World Bank had funded the integrated watershed development project, at a cost of Rs 230 crore in four northern states, covering 1.75 lakh hectares of area, from 1991 to 1998.

It was under this scheme that the base flow harvesting project at Takarla got an impetus. The agricultural yields increased. Despite the sanctions, owing to the blasts at Pokhran, it was one of the three projects, out of 27 others, which was granted extension by the World Bank (WB) in 1998."

Surveys revealed that there was a marked increase in the agro-forestry ventures. For example, more than 26,000 poplar trees have been grown in the command area whereas there was none outside it.

"This is an indicator of the success of the project as these trees need a lot of water to grow," Dr Grewal, who has compiled a book on base-flow harvesting techniques, adds.

Takarla jolted the international community as well. Impressed by the results, John Joyce, an expert from the World Bank’s Washington office descended onto the village in 1999 to study the replicability of this model in other countries as well.

Global attention, verdant orchards and well-to-do homes. A lorry from a popular multi-national soft-drink company makes rounds on the village roads and the villagers feel smug. An oasis! this place is even better than that — one does not get soft drinks in an oasis, after all.