THE farming of boro rice, the largest rice crop that accounts for 54 per cent of the total rice production, facing an irrigation problem in the north is concerning. Thousands of farmers in northern Rajshahi and Rangpur are reported to be facing problems in irrigating their boro fields because of frequent and long power outages, reported to be as long as 12鈥�18 hours a day. The lack of irrigation in the irrigation-intensive boro farming is likely to decline yields and, thereby, weaken food security. Boro fields in vast swathes of the north have started developing cracks. The problem is further worrying in the flowering period, when it is, as the Department of Agricultural Extension says, necessary to retain 3鈥�4 inches of water in the fields to protect the paddy from heat stress. The situation is bleaker in the drought-prone Barind region where farmers solely depend on groundwater for irrigation. The Barind Multipurpose Development Authority, which provides irrigation facilities through deep tube wells, cannot cater to the demand because of long hours of power outages. While farmers need to irrigate fields every two days, they can at best irrigate their fields once a week because of the power cuts.
Farmers also allege that it is difficult to get water from the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority as influential farmers get water first. The lack of access of poor farmers to Barind irrigation water has remained a concerning issue for years. In 2022, two Santal farmers committed suicide after being denied irrigation water while two others attempted suicide in 2023. Farmers in the Rangpur division are also faced with a water crisis because of power outages, which have hit the hardest in rural areas. Power officials in Rajshahi and Rangpur say that they could meet 40鈥�60 per cent of their power demand in the past few days. On April 6, outage stood, keeping to the Power Grid Company, at 1,752MW with a production of 12,565MW against the demand for 14,400MW. The situation is likely to deteriorate, with the demand likely to go as high as 17,500MW soon. The installed power generation capacity of about 26,840MW will not resolve the crisis as a half of the capacity remains unused because of fuel shortage and lack of transmission facilities. The situation points once again to the lopsided development that the power sector has undergone. The government has increased power generation capacity by 500 per cent since 2009, spent about $30 billion in the sector, a large portion of it as capacity payments to idle power plants, without attending to issues such as fuel, distribution and transmission.
The government has, therefore, issues to shore up. The government must set the power policy right to avert power crisis. As for irrigation crisis, the government must devise ways to ensure power supply to the northern region so that farmers can irrigate their land.
