Theme-IV-8-Consequences of ground water exploitation on farmers of semiarid parts of Punjab - A case study of Moga district, Punjab.

Abstract

Advent of tubewell technology has completely transformed the way irrigation using ground water was done earlier and has cause tremendous benefits for the farming community. But number of problems have come to fore because of excessive dependence on ground water irrigation for growing crops requiring assured water. Huge stress on ground water has caused decline of water levels and availability of annual replenishable ground water resource has been negative in 75% of blocks of Punjab. This has also resulted in increasing depths of new ground water abstraction structures for want of assured ground water based irrigation. This capital investment by the framers is taking its toll on the fragile socio-economic structure especially for small and marginal farmers of the Punjab state. A study was undertaken to analyse the impact of precarious ground water situation on small and marginal farmers of Moga district lying in the semi-arid parts of Punjab, where main crops grown are paddy and wheat. Experiments regarding artificial recharge have been conducted and have proved that possibilities do exist to improve the situation utilizing non-committed monsoon run-off.