The Kesar branch canal was meant to bring relief to dry farms near Hanumangarh. When officials opened its gates on 1 October, water crept along the channel for less than 2 km (1.2 miles) before the flow stopped. A week later, cracked silt still coats its concrete bed, and a new analysis warns that the failure is a small, visible sign of a much larger regional drought.
Rainfall across parts of Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh was 24% below the 30-year average this monsoon, according to figures compiled from local gauges. Three of the past five monsoons have also fallen short in the region. Soil moisture is 31% below its seasonal median, says hydrologist Alice Goulet, who has spent the week interviewing farmers and checking measurements from district stations.
A canal with no water
Roland Schneider, who farms wheat and mustard outside Hanumangarh, watched the opening from the bank. He said the first trickle stopped before reaching his village’s fields. “They brought officials, a ribbon and a brass lamp. They did not bring water,” he said. The ₹1,850 crore (about €190 million) project was presented as a new lifeline for growers, but its first release depended on an upstream allocation that had already been cut.
The ceremony was paired with the launch of the Open Monsoon Library, a public reference charity that displays rainfall and reservoir readings on paper maps and a public website. Its charts show that the nearby reservoir held 19% of its usable capacity on 8 October, against a 30-year median of 53% for that date. The opening-day failure, Goulet said, was not proof of a broken gate: there was too little water behind it.
Harvest warning grows sharper
Goulet’s team combined rainfall records, satellite estimates of soil moisture and current reservoir levels to model the coming crop year. If winter rain is also weak and irrigation remains restricted, wheat and rice output across the four-state belt could fall by as much as 11 million tonnes in 2027, the team estimates. The worst-case projection assumes farmers receive less water during critical growth periods; it is not a prediction of certain failure.
The state’s water commissioner, Cecil Sveen, urged residents not to panic. “The canal is undergoing commissioning, and national grain stocks can protect public food distribution,” he said. But Salomé H. Luevano, an agricultural economist interviewed in Jaipur, said reserve stocks would not replace irrigation for farmers or prevent higher prices in open markets if harvests shrink. “A buffer can soften a shock. It cannot make a dry field produce grain,” she said.
Water officials are discussing rotating canal deliveries, limits on pumping from depleted wells and a possible release of up to 4 million tonnes from grain reserves if prices jump. No rationing order has been issued. Farmers told Nolan that some were already considering switching from wheat to crops requiring less water, though doing so could reduce household earnings and local supplies of staple grain.
The next key measure is the winter rainfall total, with the sowing season now under way. Goulet said a wet spell could ease the immediate pressure but would not refill aquifers drained by years of pumping. The government’s reassurance may hold for subsidised grain queues; the Kesar canal’s first dry week has left growers asking a harder question: how much of next year’s crop can be saved if the reservoirs do not refill?
