With the harvest of rabi crop getting delayed this year, Krishna delta farmers, particularly those in the tail-end areas are in jitters. While, technically, no water is available in Srisailam reservoir for the purpose of irrigation, the water available in Nagarjunasagar for the same purpose is a paltry 12 tmcft.
While this is the scenario of the water availability in the two large reservoirs on the Krishna, the delta farmers are worried that no water would be available when the crop needs it most. Rabi has been sown in nearly 2.65 lakh hectares this season and it would be the middle of April or beginning of May for it to be ready for harvest.
Paddy farmer Vishal Rao, who has land in the tail-end area of Mopidevi mandal, told The Hindu that there was water in the canal on Thursday, but there was no guarantee that it would be available on Sunday.
Some farmers had sown the short-duration variety of paddy that required 120 days (1100 variety), some had gone for the 130-day (1075 variety) and some others had gone in for the 140-day (BPT-5204) variety. Harvesting of rabi crop which should have been completed by March-end but was delayed because of three weather systems lashing the coast consecutively.
No replyAgriculture Joint Director V. Narasimhulu said that he had made a written request to the government for release of water till April end. Though there was no reply from the government he hoped that water would be released.
Meanwhile, precedence seems to be for power generation over irrigation. The low levels and zero inflows did not stop APGENCO releasing water from the Srisailam reservoir for power generation. From 14,637 cusecs on Tuesday the outflows were been increased to 37,833 cusecs on Thursday. This amounted to more then three tmcft a day.
Similarly 26,280 cusecs were released from Nagarjuna Sagar on Thursday, but more then two-thirds of it was released to NSP Left and Right Main Canals.
