Peddapalli legislator D. Manohar Reddy called upon the farmers of SRSP ayacut to use water judiciously and ensure that it reaches the farmers of tail-end regions also.
Talking to newsmen here on Saturday along with Collector A Sridevasena and other officials, the legislator said that the farmers were informed well in advance to go in for ID (irrigated dry) crops such as maize because of the shortage of water in SRSP. But, about 98 per cent farmers have taken up paddy cultivation which requires huge water, he added.
He said that the farmers, who have sown paddy under the minor irrigation tanks and wells and borewells, are worried with the depletion of groundwater table as the crops were withering. However, he said that they were taking all measures to ensure that the SRSP ayacut farmers were given water to protect their standing crops.
Expressing concern over illegal siphoning of water from the SRSP canals in the upstream in Korutla and Jagtial Assembly segments by farmers using motor pumps, he said that the SRSP authorities were releasing 6,000 cusecs of water into the canal. But the Peddapalli district, which was the tail-end of the ayacut, was receiving only 1,000 cusecs against the normal quota of 2,800 cusecs.
To a query about the availability of water in Sripada Yellampalli project, he said that the Congress government had not designed the project to provide irrigation sources in Peddapalli district.
However, he said that the problem of water for the farmers would be confined to only this rabi season and after the completion of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, the farmers need not worry about the water for irrigation throughout the season. DRO B Padmaiah, RDO Ashok Kumar, Irrigation CE Shankar, district agriculture officer Tirumal Prasad and others were also present.
