Farmers brace up for paddy cultivation

Kurnool: The long await of farmers for want of water to irrigate paddy crops in the district is going to be fulfilled with the officials of Tungabhadra dam giving their consent to release water downstream.

Highlights:

• Due to incessant rains in the upper riparian state of Karnataka, good amount of flood water had reached Tungabhadra dam
• Tungabhadra Dam Board Chairman has given his consent for water release with “on and off” condition for a period of three months from 1st to 20th every month

Due to incessant rains in the upper riparian State of Karnataka, Tungabhadra dam received large inflows of flood water. The water storage in the dam was said to have crossed 70 tmc feet out of its actual storage capacity of 100 tmc feet. Till Saturday, 30 cusecs of flood water was recorded in the dam as per the source of Irrigation department. Farmers of Kurnool district are in quandary whether to take up paddy cultivation or not due to lack of water.

Despite receiving good amounts of flood water, the officials of Tungabhadra dam did not release water to downstream so far. With this, the farmers were in great distress whether to go in for paddy cultivation or take up alternative crops. Paddy would be cultivated in nearly about 50,000 acres under Low Level Canal (LLC) but based upon the water availability, the farmers of LLC used to irrigate paddy in an extent of 35,000 to 40,000 acres every year.

Irrigation Department Superintending Engineer S Chandra sekhar Rao told The Hans India here on Sunday that they have placed an indent to Tungabhadra Dam officials for release of water to LLC. Upon the availability of water, they will release water

This year there was a huge shortage of water in the dams due to scanty rainfall. Recently District Collector S Satyanarayana, Superintending Engineer (SE) of Irrigation Department, S Chandrasekhar Rao and Commissioner of Municipal Corporation Harinath Reddy held discussions with the TB dam officials for release of water.

The discussions have reaped satisfactory results and Dam Board Chairman Anil Gupta and Secretary, Ranga Reddy have given their consent for water release with “on and off” condition for a period of three months from 1st to 20th every month. This has proved to be boon to parched LLC farmers and with the spirit all the farmers are gearing up to irrigate paddy.

But most of the farmers of LLC have already sown alternative crops -- jowar, sunflower, cotton, fox tail millets and maize. In Kurnool-Cuddapah (KC) Canal, farmers have irrigated paddy only in an extent of 76,474 hectares. Due to lack of insufficient water storage in Sunkesula barrage, water was not released to KC Canal.

Even for the immersion of Ganesh idols on Saturday around 600 cusecs of water was released for five hours and stopped. With this, the farmers are in great dilemma to irrigate paddy this year under KC Canal.

Irrigation Department Superintending Engineer S Chandrasekhar Rao told The Hans India here on Sunday that they have placed an indent to Tungabhadra Dam officials for release of water to LLC. Upon the availability of water, they will release water.

Since Saturday, Tungabhadra dam was receiving 30 cusecs of flood water but it has come down to 12 cusecs, he stated. He also said “We can’t say that water will be released. There is still lot of time up to September 15, if water is released, then the same in turn will be allowed for irrigation besides drinking and if not then cultivation of paddy is doubtful.”