Representative image.

LUDHIANA: The water resources in Punjab, both surface and ground waters, are declining at an alarming rate during the last couple of decades. There is a dire need to manage these resources efficiently as well as improve their availability in the state. This emerged out of a Dialogue Meet on ‘Water Resources in Punjab – Availability And Management,’ held under the chairmanship of G.S. Kalkat, an eminent agricultural scientist and Chairman, Punjab Farmers’ Commission, at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).

Experts of water resources management, policy makers, scientists and farmers’ representatives participated in the meet. It was observed in the meeting that the availability of Ravi-Beas waters, which was assessed as 20.56 MAF based on 1921-60 flow series, has substantially decreased to 17.76 MAF based on 1981-2002 flow series and further to 16.77 MAF based on 1981-2013 flow series. On the other hand, the demand for water, due to intensive agriculture being practiced in Punjab to meet the food security needs of the nation, has increased to 52.0 MAF. Water usage in industrial and municipal sectors has also increased over the time. The declining trends of rainfall in the last decade and reduced river flows have aggravated the problem to the extent that groundwater resources in 110 out of 140 blocks in the state are over-exploited; apart from the fact that 45 blocks are notified for no further extraction of groundwater.

"The annual groundwater recharge is adequate only for about 16 lakh ha and an area of 13 lakh ha needs to be put under crops other than rice. In order to diversify to low water requiring crops like maize and mungbean, the remunerative prices and assured market are necessary. Some area could also be diverted to vegetables, fruits and fodder," said the experts. "The cultivation of pulses needs to be made as much remunerative as rice or wheat. The use of technologies like drip irrigation required massive financial resources. To enable the farmers to adopt fertigation technology and water saving machinery, the government should provide capital subsidy.

Experts claimed that the enactment and implementation of ‘Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Act-2009’ by Punjab Government aided by the large scale adoption of early maturing varieties of rice, laser leveling and steady adoption of other techniques like direct seeded rice and Happy Seeder, could not effectively check the declining ground water resource.

They strongly felt that the water resources in Punjab need to be rather improved and any diversion of water to other states will harm the economy of the state and food security of the country, as this will render dry about 4 lakh ha of land in the state. It was a common view of all the experts that the sharing of water should be strictly based on riparian rights.

