Andhra Pradesh - Eluru   

Dry spell worries delta farmers

ELURU: The downpour, which some parts of Maharastra, including Mumbai, experienced on Sunday appears to be a silver lining for farmers in the Godavari delta.

The farmers are hopeful that the inflows of the Godavari river at the Dhavaleswaram Barrage as a result of the rainfall in the catchment areas will spur agricultural operations from the first week of July.

The dry spell, which is all poised to extend into July, worries the delta farmers. To Quote M. V. Suryanarayana Raju of the Delta-based Rytu Karyacharana Samithi, lack of rain in May and June at a stretch is unprecedented.

Even as the agricultural operations are expected to gain momentum from the July first week with the inflows the river to receive from its upper reaches, the transplantation is unlikely to commence before August first week since it will take not less than 20 days for raising seedbeds. “If that is the case, the delayed transplantation will have an adverse bearing on the paddy yield in the khariff,” says Mr. Raju.

Meanwhile, the irrigation officials let the river water into the Godavari canal system through a turn system for the twin purposes of drinking water and raising seedbeds a couple of days ago.

As per the decision, water is released into the branch canals once in four days on turn basis. As the water is failing to reach the tail-ends of the canal system, the authorities have decided to pump water from the major canals into the branch canals by installing motors.

The farmers under the Krishna-Eastern canal falling under the West Godavari district are in a protest mode over the alleged dilly-dallying by the irrigation officials in release of water from the Krishna for khariff operations.

Members of the Andhra Pradesh Rytanga Samakya, who staged a protest at the Collectorate recently on the issue, are planning to meet Irrigation Minister Ponnala Lakshminarayana, who is scheduled to arrive in Vijayawada on July 1, seeking to release 30 TMCs of water from the Nagarjuna Sagar enabling agricultural operations in the Krishna delta, covering West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts.

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