Handwara, June 19: Farmers in Maidan Chogal, a major agricultural village of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district have expressed deep concerns as hundreds of kanals of land drying up because of the scarcity of irrigation water.
The villagers are terming it a “drought-like situation,” attributing the cause to the failure of the administration to give working lift irrigation pumps to their fields.
Mohammad Abdullah, a farmer, was spotted manually diverting water into a paddy field with a bucket a glimpse of the desperation in the village. “We have approached every officials, local leaders, but no one is assisting us,” he said, clearly dejected. “We are trying everything in our capacity, but without proper irrigation, our crops will perish.”
Maidan Chogal, which lies under Handwara zone, has approximately 10,00 kanals of paddy land. But this time, most of them are dry and cracked, endangering the livelihood of hundreds of families. In many areas of the village, rice seedlings have already withered due to the lack of water.
Village photos reveal harsh contrasts as one side depicts a farmer struggling to irrigate a field by buckets and sacks to control flow, and just next to it lay huge expanses of land dry and dusty, the newly planted paddy plants fighting to stay alive.
Villagers complain that no lift pumps have been installed by the authorities despite constant pleas. “We have complained to the irrigation department and even gone to local courts, but nothing has changed,” reported another farmer. “This is our sole source of income, and the government is sitting back watching us suffer in silence.”
They worry that if water is not given at the moment, the existing paddy season will incur huge crop losses, triggering food shortages and economic hardship.
With temperatures soaring and rains being unpredictable, farmers in Maidan Chogal are crying out for swift government action. They simply want restoration of irrigation and installation of lift pumps before it’s too late.
As fields wither and dry and hope disappears, farmers such as Mohammad Abdullah are left isolated in their battle to keep the earth alive bucket by bucket.
