Watching in awe visuals of rain pounding Chennai and almost all coastal districts of the state, farmers here are keeping their fingers crossed as rain during the northeast monsoon continued to evade the arid district.
While rain lashed Pudukottai and Nagapattinam adjoining on one side of the district and Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari on the other, there was hardly any sign of rain in the district, much to the agony of farmers, who have raised paddy crops on 1.25 lakh hectares.
After the onset of the monsoon early this week, farmers hoped for rain but their hopes were dashed. Farmers were worried that only Rameswaram, where there was no cultivation activity and a few pockets of the district, have received rains.
“It is disgusting to wake up to see bright sunshine in the last three days when rain pounded several parts of the State,” Maduraiveeran, a farmer in Pandiyur in Nainarkoil block says.
The district witnessed 100% crop loss last year after the failure of north east monsoon and the farmers could not afford to suffer another consecutive loss, he says.
Officials in the Agriculture department said farmers have completed direct sowing of paddy in 1.25 lakh hectares and pinned their hopes on the monsoon.
The crops were 5 to 20 days old and so far, only parts of Kadaladi block, Mudukulathur, Kamuthi and Sathirakudi areas received some amount of rains, they said.
Thiruvadanai block, considered the rice bowl of the district and majority of other areas have not received rain so far, they rued. The crops would wilt and wither if the district did not receive rain within ten days, they said.
Attack of ‘army worms’ in some areas in the absence of rains added to the woes of the farmers, they added.
After the Meteorological department warned of heavy rains on Thursday, the district administration had asked the Block Development Officers, Revenue Inspectors and Village Administrative Officers to stay overnight in their respective headquarters only to be disappointed.
Zero cultivation
However, heavy rain lashed only Rameswaram island on Thursday. As the coastal areas, where there was ‘zero cultivation’ received good rains during most of the monsoon seasons, boosting the district’s average rainfall figure, the district administration has written to the government to remove the ‘rain gauge stations’ from the coastal areas, officials said.
Collector S. Natarajan said that the district has so far received only 64.7 mm of rainfall during the northeast monsoon. Most of the rains were, however, in Rameswaram and other coastal areas, he said.
