In Scorching Summer Heat, a Flood of Woes for Wheat Farmers in Chandauli, UP

Khandwa (Chandauli), Uttar Pradesh

Vishal Yadav, a farmer from Kumbhariya-Madhapar village in Chandauli district is distraught. He had leased 24 bighas of land (1 bigha = 0.25 hectare) to cultivate wheat, but days before the harvest, water from the Warali Minor canal that flows through the village flooded his land.

“I had invested Rs 65,000 on this land to plant wheat on 24 bighas. That is almost my entire savings. I had hoped for a profit this rabi season from wheat and had taken so much care and precaution to protect my plants from pests and weeds. But, I could do nothing about the overflowing canal that has ruined my harvest and brought me and my family to the brink of destruction,” a despairing Yadav told Gaon Connection.

“Forget a profit from the wheat, there is nothing left on my field that is even fit to feed my cattle,” he said.

This was not the first time that the canal had overflowed, said Yadav. “The canal overflowed in January and I had pumped the excess water out and saved the day. But not this time,” the 26-year-old said, pointing to the overflowing canal.

More than 300 bighas of ready-to-harvest wheat crops of farmers like Yadav, across 10 villages in the area are rotting in the waterlogged fields because the canal breached its banks.

“Thousands of villagers from Khandwa, Umra, Surjapur, Kambhariya, Sudhana, Pai Bahora, Kusi and Kanjehra villages along with a dozen other villages have been deeply affected by the flooding,” Dinanath Srivastava, president Bharatiya Kisan Union that has been working with farmers’ issues in Chandauli district for over four decades, told Gaon Connection.

“More than 300 bighas of land with standing crops have been destroyed because of the overflowing of the canal. Farmers have lost a year’s worth of livelihood, and they should be suitably compensated,” he added.

Also Read: Paddy rots as an overflowing effluent drain inundates farmlands in 13 villages of Unnao, UP

Canal in sad disrepair

The agrarian district of Chandauli is covered in a network of canals. One of the important canals is Narayanpur Pump Canal. It originates in the Ganges river bordering Varanasi-Mirzapur. The Narayanpur Pump Canal has a capacity of 600 cusecs (cubic foot per second).

The canal travels for nearly 36 kilometres before it reaches Umra village, not too far from Kumbhariya-Madhapar village where Yadav has his wheat fields. The Warila Minor canal that flooded his fields and that of the other farmers in villages close by emanates from the Narayanpur Pump Canal. It flows through these villages on the border of Gazipur and finally ends up in Talashpur Mor village in Gazipur.

The farmers from the affected villages complain that the small canals that flow out of the main Narayanpur Pump Canal are in poor repair. There has been no maintenance work done on them for decades. The floodgates of the Warila Minor canal are damaged due to which there is continuous flooding. More than 300 bighas of land have been affected, the farmers said.

Srivastava, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union, said that when the water stopped flowing in the canals after March, repairs should be undertaken. “The breaches in the canal should be attended to and desilting and de-weeding should also be carried out,” he said.

Flood of Misery

Pankaj is toiling in his five acre land to remove the water that has flooded into it with the help of a pump and a tin container. The 35-year-old farmer, also from Kumbhariya-Madhapar village, was hoping to salvage some of his standing crops.

"I am trying to pump out the excess water, but have not been too successful as of now. The flooding has washed away all my hard work,” Pankaj told Gaon Connection.

“All the money I made from the kharif season, about Rs 50, 000, I put into this crop, but I can tell I have lost all that investment. I have nothing to feed my cattle with either,” he added.

Several farmers from the Khandwa region have demanded that the canal be repaired at the earliest. They said that while this time it has been flooding that has damaged their rabi crops, in the kharif season the canal has no water at all. The farmers are constantly plagued by this.

“With the money we had earned through doing labour we planted wheat in two bighas of land. In January too water had flooded into the fields, but we managed to save our crops. But since last Friday the deluge of water has been unstoppable and I could do nothing to save my crops,” Savitri from Kumbhariya village, told Gaon Connection. She was worried about how she was going to feed her family as well as her cattle.

“I have never seen so much water before. It is all because of the fact that the canal has not been maintained or cleaned for years,” Savitri pointed out. Excessive silting has damaged the banks and led to cracks in them, she said. “Everytime the canal floods, my fields are drowned. My land looks like a lake,” she said.

Repairs once the canal’s water level dips

"The Warila Minor is a branch of the main Narayanpur Pump Canal. A few days ago we received a complaint from the farmers in Khandwa region that their standing crops of wheat had been damaged,” acknowledged Sarvesh Chandra Sinha, executive engineer, Irrigation and Water Resources Department. “The breaching of the Warila-Minor canal in some places has led to the overflow of water. The matter will be looked into and the damages repaired after March once the water level in the canal drops,” the executive engineer told Gaon Connection.

According to him, in a week’s time the flow of water in the canal will slow down after which the canal would be thoroughly cleaned and repaired where required. “We have sent the estimated expenses of carrying out the repairs to the higher authorities, and will soon begin work. Once the work is complete, we hope the farmers will not face this problem again,” Sinha said.