The introduction of sprinkler irrigation system has become a boon for the farmers in the coastal mandals of Prakasam district as vast stretches of uncultivable land with sandy soil has come under cultivation, reaping good profits for the ryots.
SubsidyWith the installation of sprinklers, which comes with 70 per cent government subsidy, farmers here are now able to grow different crops, especially groundnut and colocasia throughout the year.
“Every drop of water counts here and we used to irrigate crops with pots. Leave making profit, we were not in a position to break even owing to high labour cost. But, we are now getting good returns from the same land after the installation of sprinklers,” says a group of farmers of Gavandla Palem, a coastal village near Kothapatnam.
Multiple croppingThe farmers, who had no choice but to leave the land fallow owing to lack of irrigation facility, are now cultivating multiple crops. “We grow groundnut first, then colocasia and we are easily making profits of around Rs. 1 lakh per acre,” says T. Venkatanarayana, a farmer who possesses four acres of land.
With the farmers getting more profits after the sprinkler system was introduced, it has an impact on the price of the agricultural land. “Before installation of sprinkler system, our lands used to fetch us hardly Rs. 25,000 per acre. But, now the land price also has gone up to Rs. 12 lakh per acre,” says another farmer.
Erratic power supplyHowever, erratic power supply remains to be a major worry for the farmers. “We are not even getting power for five hours a day to irrigate our crops through pump sets,” laments another farmer B. Narayana. They are now pinning high hopes on the new TDP government.
“We are looking up to the new government to ensure power supply for at least seven hours to start with, if not the promised nine hours,” Mr. Narayana says. The farmers also want the government to provide long-lasting aluminium pipes on subsidy, instead of the HDPE pipes being supplied now which get damaged frequently.
