His family harvested wheat a few weeks ago on the restricted side, while on this side, it grows chilli. An 11 foot-wide village strip on the Indian side is the patrolling zone of the Border Security Force (BSF). The crops in the restricted zone can’t be above 4 feet for security reasons. At Mamdot block’s border-side village Hazara Singh Wala, former panchayat secretary Sandeep Kumar said: “This why those farmers can’t grow sugarcane, and must keep to wheat, paddy, and chilli, and bear with a limited produce.”
The state and the central govt have been sitting on their land-acquisition request for decades. Fazilka and Ferozepur Border Area Sangharsh Committee district president RameshVadhera (67) said: “The land along the zero line in Ferozepur is worth between Rs 10 and 12 lakh an acre, but for two years, there has been no compensation for tilling it.” A senior official in the Ferozepur deputy commissioner’s office said on the condition of anonymity that: “We had released the inconvenience compensation for 2022 to the tehsildars concerned. Many farmers in the Guru Har Sahai tehsil have received it and the process is near completion in Ferozepur. This district has 3,000 acres beyond the barbedwire fence, and the office has not received the compensation money for 2023, so far.”