Punjab’s worst fear comes true: village runs out of groundwater
Paddy crop, a water guzzler, is often blamed for water woes in Punjab but the area under cultivation does not seem to have decreased.
A water tank at Patton village in Fatehgarh Sahib district; Sarpanch Manjit Kaur says water guzzler paddy will be cultivated as usual. (Express Photo by Kanchan Vasdev) For the residents of Patton village in Fatehgarh Sahib, the demand is urgent and simple: dig a new borewell to draw underground water as the only pumpset, installed by water supply and sanitation department, has stopped lifting water since August last year. The residents claim that the aquifers in the village have dried up completely and they are not getting any water for past several months.
The claim, alarming as it sounds, has failed to find any sympathy with a KNK Projects Private Limited, a firm that has set up a plant at Nanowal to treat canal water that is further supplied by the water supply and sanitation department to several villages, including Patton.
The canal water is supplied via an automated system — for three hours in the morning and three in the evening. “The villagers used to get water supply 24/7 through the pump set only bathe their cattle and waste it. The automated system of water supply has stopped the wastage. They seem to be annoyed over this. They do not understand that they are already facing a shortage of drinking water,” says Naveen Kumar Dubey, a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) engineer associated with KNK Projects Private Limited.
For the nondescript village, however, the problem is not that simple. A few days ago, when the water resources department cleaned the canal network in the area, the water supply got hit resulting in SOS calls by villagers, who took to social media claiming “aquifers in the village have dried up”.
Upon visiting Patton on Wednesday, The Indian Express learnt that the groundwater there had high concentration of fluoride — caused by indiscriminate extraction and excessive use of phosphatic fertilisers — making it unfit for consumption.
“Several villages in Fatehgarh Sahib are affected. As many as 69 villages in Khera block alone are drinking canal water. The underground water has a high fluoride content,” Sanjay Giri, Junior Engineer handling canal water supply in Khera block, said.
“We cannot say there is no water. Water is there, but it is highly concentrated. Residents having submersible bored to 350 feet can extract water, but it is unfit for consumption,” he added.
However, SOS calls by villagers brought into sharp focus the issue of shortage of drinking water due to the overdrawing of underground water and the use of fertilisers.
Paddy crop, a water guzzler, is often blamed for water woes in Punjab but the area under cultivation does not seem to have decreased.
Several parts of Punjab are facing a similar situation. According to a 2022 report by the Central Ground Water Board, “Groundwaters with fluoride above 1.50 mg/L are found mainly in Bathinda, Faridkot, Fazilka, Muktsar and Mansa districts and also at isolated places in Firozepur, Sangrur, SAS Nagar and Taran Tarn districts. High fluoride water found in areas with predominant agriculture activities, indicating the possibility of fluoride coming from phosphatic fertilisers containing fluoride as an impurity.”
However, Patiala and Farehgarh Sahib districts have also reported the lowering of groundwater and the presence of fluoride.
AAP’s Dera Bassi MLA Kuljit Singh Randhawa has repeatedly been raising the issue of lowering the water table to 1,200-1,300 feet in his Assembly segment and the presence of fluoride. “I raised the matter in the Assembly. My constituency does not have drinking water due to the presence of industries. The underground water table has receded and there is a higher concentration of chemicals in the shallow groundwater, which makes it unfit for drinking. I urged the government to supply canal water to my area also,” he said.
In Patton, however, villagers do not want canal water.
Dubey says, “I manage operations. I drank several glasses of canal water before the villagers, but they did not listen. They do not want canal water.”
Patton Sarpanch Manjit Kaur says the district administration should not have any problem in providing a new borewell. “Only Rs 16 lakh is required for digging a new bore well, but they are not doing it despite the inconvenience we face without water.”
Kamaljit Singh, a village resident, said, “Left with no option, we started a sit-in outside the DC office on Wednesday. Why don’t they install a tube well? A few days ago, we had to get water from tankers because submersible water does not wash soap. It halted cooking also. When we bathe, the soap remains on the body.”
Despite facing a shortage, villagers want more water to be extracted from aquifers.
Asked whether they would reduce the area under paddy cultivation, the Sarpanch said, “No, paddy will be cultivated as usual. The government allowed it to be transplanted from June 11. What is the option?”
During the recent cotton season, the area under cotton cultivation shrank by 80,000 hectares. Cotton is considered an option for crop diversification.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann often bemoans that 78 per cent of land in 150 blocks was in the extreme dark zones due to the depletion of the groundwater table.
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