Fresh rains add to woes of deluge-hit Lohian farmers

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, September 20

Farmers from flood-hit Lohian were already fearful of what would happen if the water level didn’t recede in the coming days. Fresh rains on Tuesday have worried them as the chances of water receding from fields have become bleak.

Already 700 acres of fields in Lohian and 500 acres of agricultural land in Sultanpur Lodhi, Kapurthala, are still waterlogged. Farmers fear if they will be able to sow anything or not. Kashmir Singh from Mundi Shehrian village said he visited his fields daily to check how much water had receded. “It is a constant battle with nature. Though water pumps have been installed to remove water from fields, it is receding at a slow pace,” he said.

A visit to Mundi Shehrian, Mundi Cholian, Mandala Channa, and Dhakka Basti presented two different pictures of the agricultural land. In some villages, fields are inundated while in other places, it feels like one has entered a desert because of sand deposited all over. In some fields, even cracks have developed.

Farmer Daler Singh from Gatta Mundi Kasu said sand was deposited in the field. “It will be a painstaking task for us to maintain our fields again and make them fertile,” he said.