Kakinada, Oct. 10: Though the recent heavy rainfall and three time floods in the river God-avari made thousands of kh-arif farmers’ life miserable, these will now be a boon to the ensuing rabi's farmers in Godavari districts.
Over 9.6 lakh acres in both East and West Godavari districts will be supplied sufficient water for cultivating paddy from various water sources, including the Godavari barrage, Sileru and Yeleru reservoirs, which have now over 100 tmc feet of water due to the heavy rains in the last few months.
The total inflow of the river Godavari at the Dowles-waram barrage was 3,700 tmc feet till the end of September. Both the irrigation projects could supply water to only 3.35 lakh acres in the same districts in the last rabi due to drought.
The district irrigation advisory board recently held a meeting on the matter with all peoples' representatives, farmers’ associations’ leaders and officials.
At the meeting, district collector Mr M. Ravi Chandra said that 8,96,553 acre in the Godavari districts would be provided sufficient water from Godavari barrage and Sileru power drift which have now nearly 94 tmc feet of water including 52 tmc feet in the Godavari barrage.
Also, nearly 65,000 acre in East Godavari district would be given water from the Yeleru reservoir which has nearly 21.22 tmc feet including 15.066 tmc feet of live storage.
According to sources, roughly 10 lakh farmers from around 68 mandals will start the 120-day rabi crop, which is likely to begin in either the last week of November or the first week of December. The number of farmers and the coverage crop area is nearly 20 to 30 per cent higher than that of the kharif crop.
Tenant farmers prefer the rabi because there are fewer chances of natural calamities and rains, besides higher chances of better paddy production as compared to the kharif crop.
General secretary of East Godavari District Farmers' Union Mr G. Appa Reddy told this newspaper that the heavy rains and floods were a bane to the kharif farmers but a boon to over 10 lakh farmers in the Godavari districts. According to him, the total rabi paddy production will easily cross 20 lakh metric tonne from the Godavari districts in this 2010-11 financial year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment