Ludhiana, August 15
“The estimates about water resources in Punjab indicate that even if every drop of water is properly managed in the present rice-wheat cropping system, there will be a net deficit of 25 per cent in the water balance. Hence, there is no alternative except for diversification in current scenario,” says Dr
J.S. Samra, Deputy Director General (Natural Resources Management),
ICAR.
He was delivering a special lecture on “Natural resource management for Agricultural Production’ under the aegis of the Ludhiana Chapter of the Indian Society of Soil Science, at the PAU Campus here yesterday.
He felt that for effecting diversification and replacing rice, it was essential to provide marketing mechanism and assured return of the farmers.
Dr Samra advised the scientists to direct their researches to meet these challenges and to arrest further degradation of the natural resources for sustaining agricultural production at the desired level.
Speaking about the implications of depletion of underground water, he said, “In Punjab — with one million tubewells — the centrifugal pumps are being rapidly replaced by the submersible pumps owing to the fast decline in the water table.
Assuming that the minimum cost of replacing one centrifugal pumps with the submersible pump was Rs 50,000 and supposing 80 per cent of the pumps have to replaced with the submersible pumps, a huge investment will be involved at the level of the farmers as well as the electricity board,” he pointed out.
The lecture was presided over by Dr
G.S. Sekhon, former Director of the Indian Potash Research Institute. Dr
V.K. Nayyar, Head, Department of Soils, PAU, proposed a vote of thanks.
