Sir,
A huge population of State of Jammu and Kashmir depends upon agriculture as main source of livelihood. Agriculture is mainstay of people of JK being main source of income and employment. Agriculture sustains 80 percent of state population and contributes average of 36 percent of State domestic product. Area under cultivation is about 24.16 lakh hectares. Agricultural land is cultivated by canals, wells and tanks tube wells, lift irrigation and other sources. About 709795 acres of land is irrigated through canals for which the Irrigation Department charges Abiana(water tax). In March 2015 budget the Government announced abolition of abiana. This step came as a relief for poor farmers of the State who are still dependent on agriculture for all their expences of day to day life. The water from canals is neither supplied regularly no adequately. Sometimes the crops get destroyed due to low rainfall, hailstorms, heavy rainfall and other reasons but no relief is given to farmers and huge water taxes were demanded from them. The abolition of abiana in budget is a welcome step but it is unfortunate that no formal orders have been issued in this regard and officials of Irrigation Department have levied water tax for crops of Rabi 2015 despite the announcements and the assessment for kharief 2015 is underway. It seems the announcement regarding abolition of water tax was hollow one like the other big announcements of Government regarding farmers welfare. Mere announcements do not work. This is known to everybody and I hope our State Cabinet too knows it well.
We request the concerned authorities to look into the matter and take necessary action in the greater interest of farmers.
Yours etc…
Baldev Singh and
Ashiq Rather
Jammu
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