The Desert is Coming

By Pankaj Chaturvedi

Growing concerns about the possibility of Punjab turning into a desert later in this century can scarcely be dismissed as alarmist any longer. The declining water levels in all the five rivers in the state and the dams not storing water to their full capacity are eloquent testimony that something is very wrong. 

Availability of water in the rivers has decreased from 17-million-acre-feet to 13-million-acre-feet in recent years. The per capita usage of water in the state is also higher than in the rest of the country, 380 litres per day as against 150 litres elsewhere. 

Experts blame the crisis on the emphasis on paddy cultivation, which yields higher returns. Indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertiliser and the growing demand for water to cultivate paddy as more and more farmers took to it, they say, led to the present precarious situation. The demand for water for agriculture has grown to 43.7 lakh hectare meter and 73 per cent of it are raised from ground water. 

During the hearing of a PIL in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, a survey conducted in each block by the Central Ground Water Board in 2020 was cited. The survey concluded that the state’s groundwater level would go down below 300 meters from the surface by 2039. Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has been warning about this for the past several years. By studying monsoon data and rainfall patterns between 1971 and 2020, a research paper on climate change by this university stated that crops that use more water are creating conditions for ‘desertification’ by over-cultivation, excessive exploitation of ground water, relatively little rainfall in the state despite the monsoon extending to four long months. 

Waterlogged fields, a necessary requirement for cultivating paddy, gets layers of saline deposited from pesticides and chemical fertiliser. In the next cycle of cultivation farmers need more or the same level of water to deal with the salinity. In case of shortage of water in the next cycle, the land can potentially become barren. The soil requires rest just as human beings do; and excessive grazing of land, over-cultivation, mechanised transportation on the land too weaken the fertility of the soil and impacts productivity. 

What is worse is that the crisis is not going to affect Punjab alone or only the availability of food grains. Agriculture in the state also provides employment to about six lakh migrant workers. The crisis will not just affect the economy of Punjab but also that of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which provide a bulk of the workers and depend on foodgrains grown in Punjab.

What is prescribed is to replace wheat and rice as the principal crops in the state. Projects to break the crop cycle and recharge groundwater should be a priority in every village. Immediate and long-term action to arrest the decreasing water flow and pollution in the rivers of the state, removal of encroachments from the rivers and a ban on mining are the other urgent priorities. Sand mining needs to be supervised and regulated and strict action taken against factories that are discharging pollutants and the local bodies which routinely fail to take action against them.

The danger is huge and the risks cannot be glossed over because once the desert spreads, retrieving the land would take up several centuries.

Notably, in 1985, 85 per cent of Punjab boasted of adequate availability of water. Just 33 years later by 2018, 45 per cent of it was reported to have very little water and 6 per cent of the state had almost no water at all. Today, tubewells are being dug to depths of 300 to 1,000 feet. More than 14 lakh tubewells are said to have been installed in the state. No wonder ground water level is going down by an average of 50 centimetres every year.

Paddy was cultivated in the state in just 2.27 hectares in 1960. Rice was not a staple diet of the people and coarse grains, wheat, gram etc were grown and the harvest was retained for household consumption before getting distributed to the rest of the country. Since then paddy cultivation has grown to more than 30 lakh hectares. 

In 2019, when the government realised the extent of this crisis, it made a law for paddy sowing and the sowing month was shifted from the scorching heat of May to June, hoping that the farmers’ need for water would be fulfilled by nature. This has also increased the problem of stubble burning. 

To make a bad situation worse, the rainy season is not only becoming unpredictable and getting delayed, it’s becoming erratic too. 

The Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) recently issued a warning that stated that there is alarmingly water scarcity in the dam due to scanty rainfall and snowfall. On 20 November, 2024, the water level in the Bhakra dam was recorded at 16.33 feet, which was 15 feet less than the previous year. At the end of December, only 63 per cent of the total storage capacity of the dam was full. The Pong Dam, which is another major reservoir, had even less water up to just 50 per cent of its capacity. The water level at Pong Dam was said to be hovering around 1,343 feet at the end of the year, which was apparently 18 feet less than the previous year in 2023. Less water in the dams results into greater exploitation of groundwater for agriculture and domestic purposes. 

A joint satellite survey by Punjab Soil Conservation and Central Ground Water Level Board revealed that if the state continued to exploit ground water at the current pace, then in the next 18 years, only five per cent of the area would have ground water left. All ground water sources are completely exhausted. The looming drinking water crisis will be exacerbated by the land turning rapidly into sand. 

A research paper by ISRO shows that the Thar Desert is spreading out of Rajasthan and taking roots in several neighbouring states. In 1996, the area of ​​Thar was 1 lakh 96 thousand 150 square kilo meters which has now expanded to 2 lakh 8 thousand 110 square kilo meters. Out of the total 328.73 million acres of land in India, 105.19 million acres of land is in Thar. But barrenness has set in while 82.18 million hectares of land is turning into desert. 

In Bhatinda, Mansa, Moga, Ferozepur, Muktsar and Faridkot, radioactive elements in the soil are reported to have crossed the acceptable limits and this is one of the telltale signs of the advancing desert. Government agencies, to be fair, are trying to make people aware of the water crisis arising largely due to paddy cultivation. This unfortunately is meeting with limited success.

• The author regularly writes on environmental topics and can be mailed at pc7001010@gmail.com. 

Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now

MONTHLY	Rs 100
YEARLY	Rs 1000
LIFETIME	Rs 10000

CLICK FOR DETAILS