The West Bengal government has decided to peg the land under boro paddy cultivation in the state at one million hectares to control the drawing of underground water. Over drawing of underground water is suspected to be the cause of arsenic poisoning in wide areas in the state.
Farmers in select areas are being persuaded to switch from boro paddy cultivation to crops which require less water.
The state, however, does not have any legislation to either regulate the cropping pattern, or the drawing of underground water. Some officials are in favour of enacting the necessary legislation to prevent a famine in the state in the coming years. The only way to check spread of arsenic poisoning in underground water is to allow the water tables to rise to their original levels. Over-exploitation of groundwater has brought the water level down to a dangerous level triggering off arsenic leaching which had been present for ages.
The state department of water resources has prepared an underground water resources map which marks areas from where more water could be drawn and those where such a practice should be avoided.
The campaign to check boro paddy cultivation in the state has already registered some success. Against 1.14 million hectares of land used for boro cultivation, the highest ever in 1996, the area was reduced to about one million hectares in 1997. Although the total area under boro cultivation has come within the optimum limit, the shifting of the boro crop from water-starved areas is still to be effected.
On an average, the state has 4.2 million hectares under aman paddy cultivation, 550,000 hectares under the aaush paddy variety and another 1 million under boro paddy. The yield is about 2,000 kg per hectare for aman, 2,200-2,300 kg per hectare for aaush and 3,000 kg per hectare for boro. The boro crop yield could be as high as 4,000 kg.
Among the three varieties of paddy, boro paddy needs maximum water. Boro being a winter crop the sowing taking place in December-January and harvesting in April-May its irrigation has to be either from river irrigation schemes or tubewells.
Of the total area under boro cultivation, only 200,000 hectares are irrigated through river irrigation projects. Another 100,000 hectares are irrigated from tanks which in turn are fed through river irrigation schemes. The remaining 700,000 hectares are watered from shallow or deep tubewells.
The water table in about 20 per cent of the land irrigated by shallow or deep tubewells has been found to be depleting fast and is likely to fall to a dangerous level soon.
The shift from boro paddy to crops requiring comparatively less water would surely affect rice production in the already rice-deficit state. The state government is telling farmers that rice could always be procured from other states, but water cannot.
Boro is the most profitable paddy crop in the state. It will take a lot of persuasion to convince farmers to shift to less remunerative crops. Any legislation and coercion over the farming pattern and restriction on drawing of groundwater is fraught with the danger of a farmers revolt.
