Sweet lime growers in the western parts of Prakasam district had looked forward to making a killing, taking advantage of the huge demand for Mousambi juice during summer. But, an unprecedented drought has dashed their hopes. The dry spell in the previous years had affected productivity to some extent. But, the fruit crop completely withered this year owing to the worst-ever drought in 45 years, lamented farmers at Bodawada village near Chandrasekharapuram.
They are now not in a position to raise the crop afresh and wait for four years for the first plucking owing to financial crunch, the farmers said. They also wanted the Central and State governments to come to their rescue.
Though there has been no disruption of power supply this year, water could not be pumped, as almost all bore wells had dried up. New bore wells sunk by them have not yielded resulted result, they complained.
“Even after sinking bore wells to a depth of 600 ft, no water could be seen, thanks to lack of rains both during kharif and rabi seasons,” said R. Narasaiah, a farmer who had raised the fruit crop in five acres for the last 15 years.
All these years, they had saved the trees much against odds by procuring water from distant places, explained another farmer, R. Obul Reddy, who had sunk bore wells at three places but could not find water. “We have no option but to uproot the trees nurtured in the last 10 years,” said another farmer K. Venkateswarulu while overseeing the removal of the trees.
