Very high density of
tubewells leads to
fall in water table in
Punjab: PSPCL report
Patiala, December 6, 2023: Though 13.94 lakh tubewells are
pumping out gallons of water to irrigate fields, a majority of these
borewells are located in the districts with overexploited water
table.
Ludhiana has maximum tubewells (1.17 lakh) followed by
Gurdaspur (99,581), Amritsar (93,946) and Sangrur (93,669).
Interestingly, these districts have shown a steepest decline in
water table. Farmers in Barnala and Sangrur have been extracting
water from the maximum depth by using 17 BHP motors followed
closely by Patiala, 16 BHP motors, to irrigate their fields.
“There is a very high density of tubewells in Punjab in addition to
solar and over 50,000 diesel pumps. While the cultivable area is
around 80 lakh acres, there’s one tubewell for every six acres,”
reads the report.
Baldev Singh Sran, CMD, PSPCL, said, “Average power subsidy in
Punjab is around Rs 10,000 per acre annually. However, in some
areas of Sangrur, Barnala and Patiala where water level is low,
subsidy touches Rs 20,000 per acre on a yearly basis.”
Out of 150 assessed blocks in Punjab, the Central Ground Water
Assessment Board’s report categorised 114 (76.47 per cent) as ‘over
exploited’, three (1.96 per cent as ‘critical’, 13 (8.5 per cent) as ‘semicritical’ and 20 blocks (13.07 per cent) as ‘safe’.
Every tubewell pumps out 30.24 lakh litres of water per week with
an average eight hours of power supply. This means that 14 lakh
tubewells pump out 4,385 billion litres of water per week.
A report submitted to the National Green Tribunal by an expert
committee suggest that if paddy transplantation is delayed by a
week, the state can meet the demand for water of its 3 crore
population for more than 3.5 years.
Agriculture experts suggest that farmers should use canal water
for irrigating their fields and the government should ensure
supply till the tail-end villages. “The Punjab Government has
started working on it. If the target is achieved early, we will be able
to save the falling groundwater table,” they said.
www.reportpunjab.com