Chandigarh, April 11 -- The agricultural experts have condemned the Punjab government's move to advance the date of paddy transplantation from June 1 to appease the peasantry, as a step towards ecological disaster.

Although a formal notification announcing the schedule for sowing kharif crop is awaited, experts said this will undo gains made post the enactment of the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, in 2009 that mandates late sowing of paddy to conserve groundwater.

According to former PAU vice-chancellor BS Dhillon, the government decision will push Punjab back into the path of ecological disaster which the state has been trying to avert for the past many years.

"By shifting back to June 1 for the start of the cultivation sch...