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PPS Gill
This is the story of two canals: Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) and Dasmesh. The former is like an ‘abandoned, orphaned child’ and the latter a ‘stillborn’ one. The ill-conceived SYL project was born of vested political interests. In Punjab, right from its conception, the project was perceived as ‘hydrological suicide’. Its remnants are a grim reminder of the wanton waste of money and manpower and the loss of lives.
Right from the word go, the SYL project was mired in controversy that vitiated the atmosphere in Punjab and Haryana. For Punjab, while SYL stands buried, the proposed Dasmesh canal is viewed as SYL in a new avatar! Both have had a chequered history. If SYL stands abandoned for good, there is a forlorn hope that the Dasmesh canal may be ‘revived’.
An indication to this effect was given in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha session last February, when some members had raised the issue to ‘revive’ the ‘shelved’ Dasmesh canal irrigation project to provide water to farmers in the Kandi area. The minister concerned had said the off-take of the proposed canal was to be from SYL and since that project itself had been abandoned and land acquired for the purpose ‘de-notified’, there was no point in taking up the issue. However, on the intervention of the Speaker, it was decided to constitute a House committee, across party lines, to study the proposal afresh and suggest steps to supply water to the areas concerned.
Experts say that even if the House committee comes up with suggestions to ‘revive’ the Dasmesh canal, the ‘revival’ would still be wrapped in a complicated web of problems, as in the intervening 21 years, the ground reality has changed drastically. Construction has come up in a big way on large tracts of land, while the government has transferred hundreds of hectares to the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, Biotech etc. and also ‘de-notified’ the land acquired for SYL. The farmers in the command area, who had hoped for a new beginning, are now demanding their land back. Fresh acquisition that may become imperative would not only mean uprooting of people but also involve a huge cost for the purpose.
The Central Ground Water Board’s (north-western region) draft report has warned that Punjab will be heading towards ‘desertification’ within the next 25 years if underground water resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, without being recharged. This warning has set the alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power, making Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh take cognisance of the impending water crisis, which affects both rural and urban areas, particularly Malwa, where water is largely unfit for irrigation and drinking.
At the current rate of extraction, all available groundwater resources in the state, till the depth of 300 metres, will end in 20-25 years, and groundwater resources till the depth of 100 metres within the next decade. Also, on groundwater recharge, of the state’s 138 blocks, 109 are overexploited, two critical and five semi-critical. Only 22 are safe.
Besides announcing the convening of an all-party meeting, the CM has given in-principle nod to set up a state water authority to ensure better management of water for domestic, agriculture, industrial and other purposes. A committee has also been formed under the Additional Chief Secretary, Development, and the PAU Vice Chancellor to explore the possibility of a “change in the existing cropping patterns, and developing viable schemes to motivate farmers to give up paddy sowing and switch over to other crops” to save water. The Cabinet sub-committee for the Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill has been reconstituted.
It was on September 4, 1998, that then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had announced the construction of the Dasmesh canal, while speaking at a function at Dera Bassi, to irrigate farms in that area. The cost of the canal was then pegged at Rs 450 crore. It was aimed at providing better canal irrigation facilities/deep tubewells in several blocks of the then and later new districts: Ropar, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Mohali.
The canal project was envisaged to cover 109,800 hectares of gross command area (GCA) and 89,500 hectares of culturable command area (CCA); 35,850 hectares of GCA and 12,950 hectares of CCA was to be covered under the deep tubewell system. There was a provision for further extension of the area under the canal system. Notably, the project was ‘de-linked’ from the SYL project.
The Dasmesh project envisaged to ‘pump up’ water from the left Bhakra Main Line into the ‘balancing reservoir’ and it was to flow by gravity, as the canal was designed to run primarily in the foothills of the Shivaliks. Documents of the irrigation project reveal details of the length of the main and branch canal, layout of the distributaries and minors; land to be acquired, production estimates of agricultural produce, expenditure to be incurred and operational costs etc.
In addition to the augmentation of irrigation, the canal project was to help recharge groundwater reservoir, arrest the depletion of groundwater and assure supplementary irrigation since the areas to be benefited were largely dependent on deep tubewells. Other benefits were in terms of diversification of agriculture and employment generation. However, given the complex groundwater behaviour in the area to be benefited, it was observed that the output of deep public tubewells did not exceed 40 per cent. Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, since 1998, has deepened the water crisis.
Farmers of the Banur area were in a very difficult situation when the Dasmesh project was initiated. It has aggravated since then. At the time of Partition, the area had inherited the non-perennial Banur canal system, whose head regulator was located in the Chhatbir Zoo area. But at the time of building/excavating the SYL, the canal command area of the Banur canal system was transferred to be fed from the SYL.
Likewise, the Rajpura plateau was to be supplied water from the SYL — 500 cusecs — by means of the ‘multiple lift irrigation’ pump system. Today, the area that had hoped for adequate and additional irrigation facilities has been left high and dry.
It appears that water scarcity, fast depleting groundwater, negligible recharge, low farm output, unremunerative agriculture, migration from rural to urban and semi-urban pockets, and growing unemployment will further precipitate the woes of the people and the state.
Repair and maintenance of the irrigation network and cleaning up of the drains, besides the steps announced by the Chief Minister, would need massive investment and copious financial help from the Centre. Punjab is already facing a financial crisis. Will the Centre oblige?
The author is a former Information Commissioner, Punjab
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