Chandigarh, December 4: Conceived as a bulwark against cross-border smuggling of arms and narcotics into trouble-torn Punjab in the 1980s, the barbed wire fencing has proved to be the bane of farmers in border villages.
In 1980, when former BSF chief Prakash Singh convinced the Union Government to build a fence, he didn’t foresee the problems farmers would have to face.
Septuagenarian Jagir Singh, a native of Wazirpur village in Gurdaspur district, has been tilling his meagre landholding across the fence for the past three decades. He says the man-made obstacle has adversely affected cultivation of various crops.
“Planting sugarcane is ruled out as the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Army say we can’t sow any crop that reaches a height of over 6 ft. Sowing paddy, too, is not feasible as it needs a lot of water. We can’t instal tubewells as the PSPCL doesn’t give power connections to farmers with land across the fence. We only have to grow wheat, which is not financially remunerative,” he laments.
“We ask our grandchildren to prepare hard for IELTS (English language test) so that they can go abroad. We are under indebt. It’s a hopeless situation for us,” he adds.
Farmers of ‘Darya Paar’ villages (on the other bank of the Ravi river) in Dinanagar Assembly segment narrate a similar tale of woes.
“We have been urging the government to build a concrete bridge which will connect us to Gurdaspur in case of floods. However, the BSF and the Army don’t allow it due to security reasons. For six months, we remain cut off from the mainland,” says Surjit Singh, a resident of Mumy Chakraja village.
In villages of Dera Baba Nanak, people queue up every morning, carrying identity cards and permission letters, to gain entry to their own farms. In BSF parlance, the area beyond the fencing is called “no man’s land”.
“Our access to the fenced land depends on the BSF’s security drill. Everything we carry – lunch boxes, seed bags, farm equipment – is checked. We have to work as per the BSF schedule,” says Surjit Singh.
According to Hakam Singh, a villager, farmers have to line up before officials to get their machinery registered ahead of every sowing/harvesting season. “The government should ease the norms,” he suggests.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
