But for the unkind rain gods and other afflictions, Punjab had hoped to harvest 22 lakh bales of this crop worth about Rs 2,400 crore this year.

Their efforts to save the crop having failed, desperate farmers have started resorting to ploughing their standing ripe crop. Little fruition has taken place on the RG-8 variety of Bengal Desi which was sown by most farmers on the recommendation of the Punjab Agriculture Department and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). And the fate of those who stuck to the traditional Narma varieties is no better. These varieties are under severe attack ofAmerican ballworm/ helothis, leaf curl, white fly and jasid diseases.

The Indian Express team which visited 20 villages in the cotton belt spanning the districts of Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar and Faridkot, found that about 60 per cent of the crop had been damaged and the farmers had destroyed hundreds of acres of standing crops without even the first picking.

But those who did speed up picking after Diwali got a very low yield. The per acre yield this time has come down to anything between 50 kg and four quintal. A yield of below three quintal per acre does not even meet the input expenses. The PAU experts estimate per acre input expenditure at not less than Rs 5,000. Most of the farmers who have grown this crop on about six lakh hectares throughout the state are likely to incur heavy losses, their earnings not meeting the input costs.

The estimated cost of production includes the expenses incurred on sprays, fertilizers, seeds, labour, field preparation and irrigation. The expenses on marketing,depreciation of farm implements, supervisory labour of farmers and his family and interest burden on loans taken to purchase inputs, are not taken into calculation.

The cycle of crop failures has rendered the farmers in the belt penniless forcing many to end their lives. So far, about 150 farmers have committed suicide. ``Farmers are not the only victims of crop failure, businessmen too are facing an equally tough time'', Madal Lal Kapoor, president of the Beopar cell of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, told The Indian Express.

Punjab led the other states in cotton production from 1991 to 1993. But the cascading production in the following years has brought it on a par with the bottomline states in the last five years. But the record low production of only seven lakh bales last year -- it was 24 lakh bales in 1991-92 -- shattered the economy of the cotton belt. Experts do not hold out any hope either.

As the area under cotton has come down by about 20 per cent, the crop is likely to touchthe lowest ebb.

Some farm experts are of the opinion that a `crop holiday' is the only way to get rid of the pests, But S S Dhillon, Director of Research, PAU, feels otherwise. He says that the pests have developed resistance to the extent that even a crop holiday will not help.

Dhillon told The Indian Express that these pests had started attacking other crops as well and if a solution was not found, the consequences might be hazardous. The PAU scientists were working hard to find a solution, he added. He disclosed that PAU had imported four varieties of soyabean which were being tested to evolve an alternative to the cotton crop.

The situation is becoming alarming for the other sections of society as well as farm labourers. Two Dalit families, one in Bathinda and another in Muktsar, have recently vanished no one knows where.