River sand buries hopes of farmers in Amritsar

Indian farmers living along the India-Pakistan border have demanded economic relief packages from the government, saying that their crops have been damaged by the Ravi river sand.

Border farmers living near Dera Baba Nanak (DBN) and Ajnala Sector cultivate around 10,000 acres of fertile land across the river, adjoining the international border.

Recently, the raging monsoon over-flooded the river alongside the border belt of DBN and Ajnala sector which further buried thousands of acres of land alongside the river under the sand.

Farmers rued that most their land has become "useless" for plantation for another two to three years.

Major Manmohan Singh, a farmer, who owns about 50 acres of land across the river, said that under the crop diversification he had planted popular trees in the major part of his land but it has now been damaged and buried under two to three feet of sand.

Perturbed farmers say that their crop was destroyed by the natural calamities so government should do something for them to survive.

Another border farmer, Rashem Singh, said if it was only water they could have used some methods to drain it out of their fields but it would be very difficult for them to remove sand from their fields.

According to available information, crop spreading over thousands of acres belongs to Chandigarh, Kasowal, Saharan and Rajian villages of the Ajnala sector.

Worried farmers demanded that the government should do something to remove sand from their fields and provide electricity connections for tube wells so that the affected agricultural land could be again made fit for cultivation.