Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
At a time when small and big nations are focusing on turning the degraded land into healthy and resourceful land to bring economic resilience and to counter the food insecurity, the authorities at helm in Jammu & Kashmir have turned the fertile and irrigated farmlands into barren and unproductive properties. Ironically the Agriculture Department seems to be unaware of this.
In-fact this year’s international day to combat desertification and drought which was commemorated on June 17th across the world revolved around the theme of converting degraded land into an agriculture rich land. While we restore the degraded land, it not only helps the farmers economically but this also helps to create more jobs and increases food security as well. By making unproductive and barren land cultivable and productive, we help the biodiversity to recover as well.
We have lots of examples with us wherein barren lands were converted into forest areas or it was made productive through agricultural activity. But there are very few instances wherein irrigated agriculture land became barren due to official mismanagement in spite of having better water resources.
Batwodder canal
From the last many centuries the Batwodder canal, also called Batwodder Kull has been irrigating hundreds of kanals of agricultural land in Budgam’s Surasyar block. Surasyar block in Chadoora sub division used to be known as Kandi area which means un irrigated area with least agricultural production. Even after so much advancements in agriculture and irrigation system, 85% of the land is un- irrigated in the Surasyar block which consists of 16 panchayat halqas. Pertinently Surasyar was part of Chadoora block until a few years back. In this entire block Batwodder was the only habitation, where paddy was grown over an area of around 1600 kanals of land (200 acres) for the last many centuries. Batwodder, which itself is a part of Bonen panchayat halqa, has derived its name from rice (Battee) wodder (karewa) , which means rice producing Karewa. The Karewa land hardly produced rice those days. It is said that a Sufi saint Ahmad Sahib (RA) who is buried at Wathoora Batpora had given this hamlet the name of Batwodder more than 100 years back.
The irrigation canal (Batwodder Kull) is around 4 kms long which has its origin around PadshahTaar area of Doodh Ganga forest range. Some water from Doodh Ganga river which flows through PadshahTaar jungle goes into the Batwodder canal. This water was used to irrigate the farmlands of Batwodder and the main village Bonen until 2014. People do have tap water in the area but the supply has a timing while Batwodder Kull was supplying clean water for entire summer months to people. This would not only benefit the human population but even the animals would get benefitted. For the last several years the cattle and sheep in the area also face a lot of difficulty in summer months. For more than 6 years this irrigation canal has been defunct and the Govt has failed to even get it repaired.
Visit to Batwodder
On June 14th 2021, I traveled to the site along with a group of activists. Batwodder is around 32 kms from Srinagar and 17 kms from Chadoora town. From Batwodder we walked around 2 to 3 kms through barren fields and forest areas to reach the site where the canal was damaged more than 6 years back.
When Mushtaq Ahmad, our senior activist who also hails from Batwodder, would tell me about the breach in the canal, I would imagine a huge landslide having damaged the Koull. But after visiting the site myself , I found the breach was very much manageable. An iron or cement concrete flume not more than 30 meters long would have restored the canal long back. Even a wooden flume would have done the job to connect two ends of the canal.
The Irrigation Department spent so much money post 2014 floods to repair irrigation canals and rivers but unfortunately not even a single penny was made available for poor people of Batwodder ,Bonen or adjoining areas of Surasyar ?
The unresponsive attitude of the Irrigation Department not only deprived people of water for irrigation, but even animals and humans also have been left to God’s mercy. This is the worst kind of human-rights abuse any developmental department has done to its citizens ? Had this been done in some western country the involved officers would have been tried in the court of law for criminal negligence ?
The officers who have been posted in Irrigation division Budgam in past have to be answerable to people of Batwodder as their non-responsive attitude and mis-governance made almost 1500 kanals of paddy land useless. The area has a great potential to grow aromatic Kashmiri rice like Mushk Badjee but that was never ever explored by the agriculture department.
Ironically, the agriculture department seems to be totally unaware of this huge loss of paddy land in a single village and denial of irrigation facilities to farmers. They could have at least urged the Irrigation Department to come to the rescue of local villagers but they too seem to be unaware of what was happening on the ground
Info under RTI
In March this year we sought information under RTI about Batwodder Kull from the office of Chief Engineer Irrigation & Flood Control Kashmir. We wanted to know whether any proposal had been prepared in the past to repair the canal or was any tender issued in this regard ? The official reply provided by the Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) Irrigation Sub Division Chadoora made it clear that the department never prioritized the repair work. The AEE in his official reply dated 14.05.2021, said that restoration work has been reflected in this year’s (2021) capex plan , however tenders have not been floated as authorization was not received from the higher ups ? It is clear that the canal restoration work is not a priority for the Govt even after 6 long years? I am sure this article would act as a wakeup call for the officers of Irrigation department who must visit the area soon and undertake the restoration work on BatwodderKoull before the winter sets in.
Conclusion
I am thankful to Principal Secretary Agriculture Production Department who took this issue seriously. I had sent him updates of this canal and requested him to direct the Director Agriculture Kashmir to visit the site. The Director Mr Iqbal Chowdhary came to Batwodder the very next day. I am hopeful that the agriculture Department will also intervene in this issue and put pressure on the Irrigation Department to restore the canal.
(The author is Founder & Chairman of J&K RTI Movement)
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