Standing at a safe distance from the banks of the roaring Sutlej, farmer Harjap Singh casts a dejected eye at his poplar field, which the river is gobbling up inch by inch.

The Sutlej, which usually stays calm for years, sometimes even decades, has now unleashed its wrath on Shahpur Bela village in Nurpur Bedi block of Punjab’s Ropar district, submerging paddy fields, poplar plantations, roads and homes on its way.

Shahpur Bela is among the nearly 2,000 villages (around 17 per cent of rural Punjab) that have been flooded by the raging Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. The rivers in spate have inundated over 400,000 acres of crops and claimed 46 lives in the past fortnight.

“Around two acres of my farmland have already gone,” Harjap says.

Harjap Singh standing outside his fields, which have already been swallowed by Sutlej.

However, the loss is nothing new for the family that has lived on the riverbank for generations. Harjap’s forefathers have seen the Sutlej devour their land time and again. In 2023, they lost around four acres upstream, despite spending around ₹8 lakh on building a stone embankment.

Punjab is facing significant crop damage because of severe flooding. According to the government’s media bulletin released on Sunday, 4.3 lakh acres have been damaged in 17 of the 23 districts in the state. The current main crop is paddy, and sowing costs per acre (excluding the rent of land) stand at ₹18,000-20,000.

Punjab accounts for 47 per cent of the country’s wheat production and 24 per cent of the total rice produced.

In Batarala village, which is cut in half by the Sutlej, fields have gone underwater for as far as the eye can see. Sarpach Manish Kumar tells The Telegraph that paddy and corn grown across 300 acres in their village have been completely damaged.

A portion of Shahpur Bela village, which houses around 60 families, has been cut off from the rest of the world. Boats are the only mode of transport there.

“We tried to move the residents to safer places. We even sent boats, but they refused our offer, saying they could not leave their cattle behind,” says Sunita Khillan, sub-registrar of Nurpur Bedi. This is a pan-Punjab phenomenon as dairy farming is the biggest employer in rural Punjab after agriculture. Every household, whether upper caste or Dalit, rears livestock.

According to the 21st livestock census, Punjab’s livestock population stands at 58 lakh, which is mainly concentrated in the villages. The latest floods have led to widespread livestock casualties.

Lakhbir Singh, a resident of Abiana Khurd village in Ropar, has 19 buffaloes. He refused to leave them behind despite being marooned by the rising floodwaters. He, along with his cousin Maha Singh and his family, stayed put for seven days even when the river water reached his front yard. It was only after the water receded that they moved to a safer place along with the 19 buffaloes, which are now safely chained in different houses of the village.

Lakhbir Singh, along with his buffaloes, at the house of another villager who has given shelter not only to him but also his livestock

“Punjab is alive today because people stand by each other in difficult times, irrespective of religion, caste or region. They don’t wait for governments to come and save them,” says Jaswinder Singh, the sarpanch of Abiana Khurd.

However, the bigger challenge, not just for Punjab but for the country, is the damaged paddy crop and the uncertainty over the sowing of wheat because of waterlogging in the fields. Wheat is sown at the end of October.

According to agriculture experts, the paddy plant starts dying if it remains completely submerged in water for 48 hours in the advanced stage of ripening.

The highest crop loss is being reported in Gurdaspur and Amritsar — 99,000 and 67,000 acres, respectively. Both districts are located on the banks of the Ravi. The Sutlej has wreaked maximum havoc across 46,000 acres in Fazilka and 42,500 acres in Ferozepur.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Punjab on September 9. Asked about it, Gurpreet Singh, pointing to the ruins of his 35-acre farmland in Batarala, says: “Punjab feeds the nation. Now it is time for him to stand with Punjab.”