Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked the Congress government not to punish Malwa farmers for its own failures by imposing draconian cuts...

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked the Congress government not to punish Malwa farmers for its own failures by imposing draconian cuts on lifting of irrigation water through pump sets from the Sirhind canal. In a statement here, party spokesman Charanjit Singh Brar said it was shocking that the Congress government had put restrictions on lifting of water from the canal during the paddy season. He said a recent communiqué laid down that farmers could lift water from the canal by using pump sets for one week at a time and then forgo the facility for the next one week.

Shiromani Akali Dal

Mr Brar said this incomprehensible order during the peak of the paddy season when the crop needed water the most had jeopardized thousands of acres of paddy planted in areas which were at tail ends. He said affected farmers in Faridkot, Korkapura, Muktsar, Lambi and Gidderbaha constituencies had given undertakings that they would not avail of water from irrigation channels and had been given permission to use lift pumps to use water for irrigating their fields from the Sirhind canal. “Now when the area is parched with it not receiving any rainfall for more than one month, the Congress government has put restrictions on usage of canal water”, he added.

Farmers were spending money on diesel to lift water from the canal

The Akali leader said farmers were spending money on diesel to lift water from the canal because they were not getting adequate water from irrigation water courses as their land was situated on tail-ends. He said these farmers who owned around 600 pump sets across kilometer length of the Sirhind canal were now facing a bleak future. Asking the State government to withdraw its order on usage of lift pumps immediately, Mr Brar said if the government wanted to make any change in its policy it should have done so before the paddy season.

Former chief minister S Parkash Singh Badal

“Farmers could have also planned accordingly and gone in for some other crop”. He said the change in policy was even more shocking because the government had charged water cess from farmers for using canal water even though it had not fulfilled any of its responsibilities like cleaning the Sirhind canal before the start of the paddy transplantation season. Mr Brar said in case the lift pump facility, which was first initiated by former chief minister S Parkash Singh Badal, was not extended in full to farmers immediately, the SAD would protest alongside farmers to get this discrimination removed.