Representing to the Central team that visited the district on Friday, farmers of Thanjavur district highlighted the acute water shortage they were facing and the difficulty in raising the samba crop. They appealed to the team to do the needful to get water from Karnataka.
They met the team members at various places in Budalur and Thanjavur blocks and showed them the ploughed paddy fields where they could not do any sowing for want of water.
The team comprising R.K.Gupta, Chief Engineer; T.K.Sivarajan, Director, Monitoring, Virendra Sharma, Superintending Engineer, and Pradeep Thakur, Deputy Director, Planning, all from the Central Water Commission, toured the district to ascertain the extent of area sown and requirement of water till October 15, 2012 with respect to samba cultivation.
As soon as the team arrived at Grand Anicut by 1.30 p.m. farmers of Tiruchi district met them and told them they need water for 110 days for the samba season. “You alone can help us in this regard to get water from Karnataka,” they emphasised.
The team saw uncultivated paddy fields at Padarakudi village in the Budalur block. At Kachamangalam, a farmer couple Rani and Rayappan, said, “We are not even able to sow in the ploughed paddy fields for want of water.” The team also visited Megalathur, Kadambakudi, Orathur, Budalur, Koilpattu and Kallaperambur. At Kallaperambur farmers said they were not able to go for direct sowing and haf to stop with ploughing the field.
Agriculture department officials informed the team that samba could not be raised on 180 hectares in Padarakudi village, 166 hectares in Kachamangalam village, 210 hectares in Megalathur, 170 hectares in Kadambakudi, 210 hectares in Orathur, and 450 hectares in Budalur.
The team members said it was only a technical group and will submit its report to Centre. K.Baskaran, District Collector, Ganesa Marachan, Chief Engineer, PWD, Tiruchi, Z. Mohammed Yahiya, Joint Director of Agriculture, Manoharan, Superintending Engineer, PWD, Thanjavur circle, S.Suresh Kumar, District Revenue Officer, accompanied the team during the visit.
The team visits Tiruvarur district on Saturday.
