Farmers cry foul over high-powered border lights affecting crops, damages to occur in crores

Farmers cultivating land along the India–Bangladesh international border have raised serious concerns over severe crop damage caused by high-powered LED lights installed along the barbed-wire fencing.

Hundreds of marginal and sharecropper farmers working in the areas adjacent to the border fence have reported that their paddy plants have been badly affected by the intense illumination from these flood lighting systems installed in the entire Indo-Bangla border along barbed wire fencing.

When our reporter spoke to these affected farmers , said that the paddies, although grown to full height, have dried up and died as a result of continuous exposure to the bright light. Consequently, there has been almost no yield during the ongoing ‘Aman’ season.

The problem has worsened due to the installation of an additional layer of barbed wire about five metres inside Indian territory. Farmers and agricultural labourers often get injured while working in the fields as they accidentally step on or hit the wire, leading to bleeding injuries. Several such incidents have already been reported.

Farmers from border villages under the Sepahijala district of Tripura  in the Southern part of Sonamura subdivision have been the worst affected. The situation is reportedly the same across all border villages, from parts of West Tripura district to the last part of Indo-Bangla border areas in South Tripura district.

On Saturday, several farmers including Rahim Miah of Nirbhaypur, Shailen Sarkar, Haradhan De, and Narayan Majumder spoke to our reporter and lodged their complaints. They stated that earlier there were low-power lights along the border, which did not harm the crops.

However, over the past one year, high-powered LED lights have been installed on iron poles at a height of around 30 feet, and these remain switched on throughout the night.

The farmers said they had invested a significant amount of money and hard labour into cultivation this season, but the continuous lighting has destroyed their crops. “Who will compensate for our losses?” they asked.

They also informed that the matter was raised with the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on duty, but they were told that nothing could be done in this regard. The affected farmers have further approached local representatives, including members of the Block Panchayat Samiti and the local MLA. However, they were only assured that the issue would be looked into.

The farmers have now urged the Agriculture Minister Ratan Lal Nath to take immediate notice of the matter. They warned that if the issue is not resolved, agricultural lands on both sides of the border fence within Indian territory will soon turn completely uncultivated.

 “After spending money and putting in so much hard work, if we get no harvest at all, what is the benefit of farming?” the farmers lamented.