Irrigation Water Crisis: In despair, farmer attempts suicide

A farmer has tried to take his life by taking pesticide after failing to get irrigation water for his paddy field in Rajshahi's Godagari upazila.

Mukul Soren, 35, a sharecropper from the Santal community in Golai village, is undergoing treatment at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital since early Monday, said his family.

Rajshahi DC Shamim Ahmed said Mukul's family members informed him about his difficulties in getting water on Monday night when he visited him at the hospital.

The DC said he formed a three-member probe committee, led by the Godagari UNO, to investigate the incident and submit a report in seven days.

In the neighbouring Nimghutu village, two farmers -- Abhinath Mardi, 36, and his cousin Robi Mardi, 27, -- died by suicide in March last year after failing to get irrigation water.

Abhinath's wife filed a case over the deaths and police pressed charges against Shakhawat Hossain, the local deep tube-well operator, for provoking their deaths by not providing water to their paddy fields.

Following the incident, the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority, which oversees the irrigation in the area, replaced Shakhawat with a new operator named Hashem Ali Babu.

Under the same deep tube-well scheme, Mukul cultivated paddy on around 3.5 bighas in two plots this year.

Mukul was being denied water at a time when the plants were at their flowering stage and the fields needed to be kept well-irrigated, Mukul's mother Duli Hembrom said at the hospital yesterday.

The deep tube-well operator was harassing him and returning him every day promising that he would be given water the next day, Duli quoted her son as saying.

Mukul filed a complaint with the local union parishad chairman, but got no results. In the meantime, the ground of his fields started cracking and the plants turned yellow.

Shamsul Wadud, additional director of Department of Agricultural Extension (Rajshahi region), said the paddy fields in the region should be under constant irrigation during this period.

Speaking to The Daily Star in the hospital, Mukul said he became helpless as he was denied water repeatedly.

"As I belong to the Santal community, I cannot force anyone [to provide water]. I felt helpless."

He said he took two bottles of pesticide from the tube-well room, and drank pesticide from one of those in front of the operator on Sunday afternoon.

Operator Hashem then took away the other bottle.

The farmer was admitted to the RMCH around 3:00am Monday, said a hospital staff.

The Rajshahi DC said he ordered the authorities to circulate his mobile phone number among all farmers so that they could directly inform him about their problems.

"We will not allow any indiscipline in the distribution of irrigation water," he said.

Mukul's brother-in-law Robi Kisku said the deep tube-well was designated for irrigating paddy fields on 250 bighas, but the operator supplied water to 450 bighas which resulted in the water crisis in the area.

"Water crisis in summer is common in our area. But supplying water to additional fields deepens the scarcity," Robi said.

Operator Hashem said every farmer needs water as a heatwave was sweeping across the area.

"How can I provide water to all farmers at a same time?"

He denied the allegations of supplying water to additional fields and the farmer's statement that he took pesticide in front of him.

"When he threatened that he would take pesticide, I asked him to go to his field assuring him that I would give him water. But he went home instead," Hashem said.