Farmers in drought-prone Prakasam district are a worried lot in the wake of meagre inflows into reservoirs across the river Krishna in Andhra Pradesh coupled with 48.4% deficit rainfall during the water year so far.
As a result, crop coverage has been a poor 22% of the normal cropped area of 5,36,442 acres during the kharif season with red gram, the principal pulse crop grown in the district under rain-fed condition, dipping to as low as 33,000 acres as on September 3 as against the normal extent of 1,97,000 acres, a report compiled by the Agriculture department said. The district had a rainfall of only 155.8 mm as against the normal rainfall of 301.95 mm as on date.
Irrigation authorities have directed farmers not to go for high water-consuming paddy this year and instead prefer rain-fed crops on 2.53 lakh acres coming under the Nagarjuna Sagar Right Bank Canal (NRBC) ayacut if there are enough rains during September. This was in the light of poor storage in the reservoirs in the Krishna basin.
“The storage is a poor 267.51 tmc (45.37%) in the Krishna basin as on Sunday as against 357 tmc (60.54%) during the same day last year,” according to a report compiled by the State Water Resources department. Both Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) reservoirs had zero inflows on Sunday. Water released into NRBC branch canals of Ongole and Darsi should only be used for filling 96 drinking-water projects and farmers should not try to divert the same to grow crops,” department officials said. Farmers should sow crops that consume relatively less water such as cotton, maize, red gram, green gram, black gram and edible oil seeds, and that too only after some showers during September, they said.
‘’All is not lost as there is still a month left for the kharif season to end. September has started on a positive note with Prakasam district getting an average rainfall of 54.6 mm in the first three days, explained Agriculture Joint Director S. Srinivasa Rao in a conversation with The Hindu.
The district recorded an average rainfall of 48.9 mm on September 3 alone with Giddalur receiving the highest rainfall of 148.8 mm followed by Chimakurthy (92.8 mm), Ponnalur (92.4 mm), Maddipadu (91.2 mm), S.N. Padu (86.6 mm), Darsi (77.2 mm) and Tallur (75.2 mm). The crop coverage will improve to at least 80% of the normal if the current wet spell continued during the entire month. The leftover acreage could be covered during the rabi season, he said. It had always been late kharif and early rabi in the arid district, where both the cropping seasons mingle, he added.
Meanwhile, Samyukta Kisan Morcha Prakasam district convenor Ch. Ranga Rao said the State government, which had come out with the contingency plan, should also ensure a remunerative prices for the alternative crops suggested as per the formula (c2 plus 50%) evolved by noted agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan.
It was unfortunate that the faulty gate of Gundalakamma reservoir, which irrigated 80,000 acres, had not been repaired by allotting ₹2.50 crore, leading to 3.50 tmc of water going waste into the sea at a time when the district was gripped by drought, said Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam district secretary Vadde Hanuma Reddy, exhorting the farmers for a three-day protest from September 4 in front of mandal revenue offices in the riverine mandals.
