Rajasthan
Water Pollution: As fertile fields lie barren for 40 years, farmers seek to stop river water pollution by industries | Jaipur News
Narayan Dan, 75, cannot forget how his agricultural land suddenly stopped making the crops on it produce anything at all about 40 years ago.
“The land was simply producing nothing out of the crops planted on it. It was constantly giving a bad crop every crop season. Seeds, fertilisers, weather conditions… nothing was wrong. Yet the plants simply bore no fruit or gave a bad yield, be it musk melon, wheat, or mustard.The mid-1980s gave us the jolt of unendingcrop loss year after year. I and many other farmers were at our wits’ end,” said Dan, sitting at the chaupal of his village, Jaitpur in Pali district.
It was not long before the shell-shocked farmers of Jaitpur and Gadhwara, situated on the banks of the Bandi River, around 20 km downstream from Pali town, learnt to their chagrin that their agricultural fields had nearly lost all their fertility. Complaints with the authorities and subsequent enquiries ordered to understand the phenomenon revealed the truth that shocked the farmers even more.
“We learnt that the water from the Bandi River we had been using for irrigation had started getting polluted because of the untreated industrial waste, mostly from the textile industry, being released into it. Now, it has been 40 years since the farmers in these villages last grown crops on their land,” said Dan.
Residents of Jaitpur and Gadhwara said no farming activities have taken place on land in a radius of 5 km to 7 km of the twin villages for the last 40 years. The extremely high presence of toxins in the underground water has made several bighas of the agriculture land barren. If anyone in the region is still involved in agriculture, they are completely dependent on rainwater for irrigation, said the farmers.
“The problem is that we have never had an MLA who comes from a farming background. Elected representatives from farming backgrounds can understand what we have gone through. At present, it is the industries’ money power that rules the area. No one thinks about us farmers,” said Lakshman Patel, 70, a former sarpanch of Gadhwara village.
He lamented the fate of the land. “Even grass does not grow in these villages. The soil has been corroded to irreparable extents. Our next generations are compelled to work as labourers in the same factories that polluted our lands,” said Patel.
When people from nearby villagers take their farm produce to sell in the market, they are asked if the crop was cultivated using rainwater or Bandi River water. Farm produce grown by irrigation with the Bandi River water has no buyers, said villagers.
“All systems are in place to treat polluted water of the industries before it is released into the Bandi River, but the polluted water continues being released untreated for decades. The Bandi can hardly be called a river today. We have raised the matter before NGT, the high court, and Supreme Court of India, but are still awaiting justice,” said Gautam Trivedi, a member of Kisan Paryavaran Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation that raised the matter with National Green Tribunal (NGT).
Locals said that the issue of the Bandi River being polluted by untreated effluents released by the textile industry units was raised by the elected representatives in the state assembly and parliament, but the farmers are yet to get relief.
“I have forgotten how many times the courts have imposed fines on the industries to compensate farmers, but they have neither compensated us nor have left our lands cultivable. In the end, it is us farmers who continue to suffer. Despite having our own land, we work on others’ fields or work as daily wage labourers to support our families,” said Trivedi.
“The land was simply producing nothing out of the crops planted on it. It was constantly giving a bad crop every crop season. Seeds, fertilisers, weather conditions… nothing was wrong. Yet the plants simply bore no fruit or gave a bad yield, be it musk melon, wheat, or mustard.The mid-1980s gave us the jolt of unendingcrop loss year after year. I and many other farmers were at our wits’ end,” said Dan, sitting at the chaupal of his village, Jaitpur in Pali district.
It was not long before the shell-shocked farmers of Jaitpur and Gadhwara, situated on the banks of the Bandi River, around 20 km downstream from Pali town, learnt to their chagrin that their agricultural fields had nearly lost all their fertility. Complaints with the authorities and subsequent enquiries ordered to understand the phenomenon revealed the truth that shocked the farmers even more.
“We learnt that the water from the Bandi River we had been using for irrigation had started getting polluted because of the untreated industrial waste, mostly from the textile industry, being released into it. Now, it has been 40 years since the farmers in these villages last grown crops on their land,” said Dan.
Residents of Jaitpur and Gadhwara said no farming activities have taken place on land in a radius of 5 km to 7 km of the twin villages for the last 40 years. The extremely high presence of toxins in the underground water has made several bighas of the agriculture land barren. If anyone in the region is still involved in agriculture, they are completely dependent on rainwater for irrigation, said the farmers.
“The problem is that we have never had an MLA who comes from a farming background. Elected representatives from farming backgrounds can understand what we have gone through. At present, it is the industries’ money power that rules the area. No one thinks about us farmers,” said Lakshman Patel, 70, a former sarpanch of Gadhwara village.
He lamented the fate of the land. “Even grass does not grow in these villages. The soil has been corroded to irreparable extents. Our next generations are compelled to work as labourers in the same factories that polluted our lands,” said Patel.
When people from nearby villagers take their farm produce to sell in the market, they are asked if the crop was cultivated using rainwater or Bandi River water. Farm produce grown by irrigation with the Bandi River water has no buyers, said villagers.
“All systems are in place to treat polluted water of the industries before it is released into the Bandi River, but the polluted water continues being released untreated for decades. The Bandi can hardly be called a river today. We have raised the matter before NGT, the high court, and Supreme Court of India, but are still awaiting justice,” said Gautam Trivedi, a member of Kisan Paryavaran Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation that raised the matter with National Green Tribunal (NGT).
Locals said that the issue of the Bandi River being polluted by untreated effluents released by the textile industry units was raised by the elected representatives in the state assembly and parliament, but the farmers are yet to get relief.
“I have forgotten how many times the courts have imposed fines on the industries to compensate farmers, but they have neither compensated us nor have left our lands cultivable. In the end, it is us farmers who continue to suffer. Despite having our own land, we work on others’ fields or work as daily wage labourers to support our families,” said Trivedi.
