CHANDIGARH, May 20— A major engineering project has successfully introduced canal-based irrigation to the water-stressed Balachaur Kandi belt, breaking a decades-long reliance on failing underground aquifers.
The Kathgarh Lift Irrigation Scheme began delivering regular water supplies to agricultural fields on Tuesday, signaling a new approach to resource management in Punjab’s challenging semi-hilly landscapes. The project utilizes a massive 221-kilometer closed underground pipeline network to pump water up an elevation of 300 feet, successfully transforming vast stretches of rocky, drought-vulnerable terrain into cultivable acreage.
Local agricultural communities expressed relief at the arrival of the infrastructure, noting that it reverses generations of economic uncertainty caused by crop failures and high tubewell costs.
“Water has reached our fields and brought a sense of security we never had before,” a resident farmer noted. “Earlier, we lived entirely at the mercy of rain.”
The initiative addresses critical groundwater depletion across 110 villages in the Balachaur region, effectively increasing the irrigated footprint from a previous 28,205 acres to an estimated 39,705 acres. In its initial phase, the system provides an immediate supply line to 38 distinct villages on the right bank of the Bist Doab Canal in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, stabilizing roughly 11,500 acres of highly vulnerable farmland.
The state government paired the water infrastructure with a 1,300-kilowatt solar power grid. The clean energy setup is designed to offset the heavy electrical demands of lifting water over uneven topography, lowering the overall cost of operations while protecting local ecology.
State representatives affirmed that the completion of the network represents a turning point for agricultural resilience in regions that past development projects failed to reach.
