Heavy rains in Haryana have caused great distress to paddy farmers like Sanjeev Dhankhad. According to him, for the past 20 days or so, his farm has been waterlogged with five to six feet of water as a poorly maintained canal that passes through Jhajjar district, overflowed and flooded several hundred acres of paddy fields.
“I had transplanted paddy in eleven acres of land, and lost the whole lot in the rains,” Dhakhad told Gaon Connection. He estimated that just in his village, Chudani in Jhajjar district, nearly 150-200 acres (60-80 hectares) of farmland was under water for the past 20 days.
Along with the farmlands in the surrounding villages, Dhankhad said the crop damage could be to nearly 600 acres (242 hectares) of paddy.
Government officials accept the waterlogging caused due to the overflowing canal. “This has happened due to the canal overflowing. But barely 400 acres of land in and around Chudani village had been submerged,” Pradeep Khatri, official from the revenue department, Jhajjar, told Gaon Connection. “The government has set up five electrical pumps to drain the water, but the rains were so much that the pumps are not being able to work,” Khatri explained.
While the authorities are unable to drain out the water, losses of the farmers are mounting.
Dhankhad claimed he alone had incurred a loss of Rs 150,000. “I had planted the 1121 variety of basmati rice, for which I make about fifteen thousand rupees an acre. But if you take into account the losses of the area at large, the losses must be running into crores,” he added.
Canal woes and excess rainfall
The reason for the waterlogged fields in Jhajjar is the overflowing of the canal that carries the water from Rohtak area in Haryana to Delhi and ultimately into the Yamuna river. Villagers claim that the canal is broken in places, which has led to it getting blocked and therefore the water has overflowed, causing damage to crops.
“There has been above-normal rainfall in nineteen out of the twenty two districts in Haryana,” ML Khichar, professor (agriculture/meteorology) at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Hisar, told Gaon Connection. “While the rainfall between June 1 and August 2 should have been 224.1mm, it was 321.4 mm, almost 43 per cent more than normal,” he added. He is also the chief nodal officer of the Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva (GKMS), that along with India Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Science in collaboration with state agricultural universities /Indian Council of Agricultural Research, etc. issue crop and location specific weather based agro advisories for the benefit of farming communities.
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Farmers in Jhajjar whose fields are waterlogged for almost three weeks now are worried. “There is no one to turn to in this time of distress. The government does not compensate us for the loss and no insurance company is willing to give us crop insurance,” 46-year-old Dhankhad said.
There are about 3,000 farmers in his village, and almost everyone has faced considerable losses, he added.
No insurance since 2017
This isn’t the first time that farmers in Jhajjar district have lost their crops due to the overflowing canal. “In 2017, when our fields were waterlogged and our crops drowned, we got a compensation of sixteen thousand rupees an acre from the insurance companies,” Dhankad said.
After that, he claimed, the insurance companies refused to insure their crops saying it was not a ‘natural disaster’ that caused the damage but a broken canal. “So when we again suffered damages in 2019 due to flooding, we could claim no insurance as the companies had refused to insure our lands,” he added.
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The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was introduced in 2016-17. In May 2019, a notification was issued stating that paddy and sugarcane crops that were damaged due to waterlogging would not be compensated for. Private insurance companies also refused to insure crops that fall under areas prone to waterlogging.
The department of agriculture and farmers welfare, Haryana, confirmed that changes were brought into the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and no insurance was undertaken in areas where crops were liable to get waterlogged. However, the government provides some compensation to the farmers.
“Wherever the crops are not insured and are damaged, the revenue department of the state, according to its rules, provides compensation,” Jagraj Dandi, joint director of the agriculture and farmers welfare department, Chandigarh, told Gaon Connection.
But the village inhabitants of Chudani refute the claims that any compensation was paid after 2017. And not a penny this time either when nearly 600 acres of crops were damaged, they complained. To that, Dandi gave an assurance, “They will get compensation. I will look into it.”
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Canal lies unrepaired
According to farmers in Haryana, who cultivate basmati rice, if everything goes well, with adequate rainfall and the right price, they can earn up to Rs 50,000 per acre. But this time their entire investment was washed away.
“Thousands of farmers were devastated only because the government has not thought to repair and reinforce the canals,” Sumit Dagar, of Chudani village, told Gaon Connection. “The district commissioners come and go and assure us each time that the canal will be repaired, but it has not happened so far,” he added. “How is this the fault of the farmers? How will they survive,” 32-year-old Dagar asked.
“Every two to three years our land gets waterlogged. Not only does it damage the crop, but the water that does not drain quickly leaves the soil so wet and soggy that we cannot sow our next crop of wheat,” Dagar lamented. “The canal collapses every year and with it our crops are destroyed,” he said.
Pradeep Khatri, official from the revenue department, Jhajjar, said: “We have visited the affected areas and submitted reports to Shyam Lal Poonia, district commissioner, Jhajjar, who has also visited the areas.” The survey of damaged crops in the district would begin soon. “But that can happen only where there are crops left to survey, there is nothing but water left here,” Khatri said.
Meanwhile, the farmers who are staring at acres of their land converted into lakes by the waterlogging are left without either insurance or government compensation to turn their lives around.
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