Four farmers killed in police firing while demanding more water for irrigation; anger still brewing
If we are doomed to witness water wars in the coming years, as many experts predict, they would perhaps begin thus. Four farmers were killed and about 30 were injured in police firing in Rawla and Ghadsana towns of Rajasthan's Sriganganagar district on October 27, 2004. They were protesting an alleged reduction in their water allowance from the Indira Gandhi Canal (igc). While defending the police action, the government denies any such reduction. It holds scarcity of rainfall, population increase and growing consumption responsible for the water crisis. But its explanations leave a few questions unanswered, and this is perhaps the reason why the farmers are in no mood to relent even after the incident.
The Indira Gandhi Nahar Project (ignp) transformed Sriganganagar district from a desert to a green area in the 1970s (see box: The U turn). But the farmers complain about decreased water supply in the past five years. They have suffered huge crop loss during this period. Farmers had been agitating to get more water from igc for almost a month before the police-firing incident. Frustrated at not being heard and to protest against previous day's lathicharge on farmers at Ghadsana, they attacked the Rawla police station on the ill-fated day. They also torched several government buildings and official residences. To contain the uprising, the police first lathicharged the protestors and then opened fire on them, killing two of them on the spot. One farmer succumbed to his injuries later. Not very far away, another agitating farmer was killed in police firing near Ghadsana.
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The ignp's main canal, which has a capacity of 18,000 cusec water, gets only 5,203 cusec water, according to the state's irrigation department. Rajasthan blames Punjab for this shorfall. "Punjab does wrong gauging at Harike barrage from where the water is released to igc. It doesn't give us enough water," alleges an irrigation department official. To resolve this issue, a meeting was held between the irrigation ministers of Punjab and Rajasthan in New Delhi on May 21, 2001. Rajasthan proposed to transfer the control of the barrage to Bhakra Beas Management Board, constituted to reconcile water accounts. But Punjab did not agree. And the water scarcity in the canal continues. What is worse, the essential water requirement of the area has risen to 2,070 cusec due to population growth. This leaves only 3,133 cusec water for irrigation for both stages. This is highly insufficient, especially because the command area, referring to the area under irrigation, has increased. The command area under ignp's first stage, which is divided into two phases, was 0.5 million hectares in 2000-2001. But the project is designed to irrigate only 0.38 million hectares. Though the command area decreased after 1999 due to water scarcity, it is still much more than what the project can irrigate(see table: Increasing command area). "Even if we irrigate only the first phase of stage one as per the allowance, we will need 7,602 cusec water. But we have only 3,133 cusec for both the stages," Regar says. In fact, the command area has been more than planned from the beginning of ignp (see graph: Poor water management).
But these explanations can't answer two simple questions of farmers: what is the government doing to fight water scarcity and why is it developing the project's second stage if there isn't enough water even for the first? "The government can't suppress our protest by killing or arresting us. Ghadsana and Rawla were just trailers," warns Bhupram Vishnoi, a kss member.
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