Dandem Nagaraju (40) of Rampur village in Nallabelly mandal got three acres like nine other SC families did in 2016. Much awaited but soon turned out to be a bane. Reason? The land is barren and the SC corporation tried to dig borewells, but in vain. Of the four borewells it dug up, none yielded water.
Then, the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) pitched in. It sanctioned farm ponds to all the 10 SC beneficiaries. Plus, they got it tied up with MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and spent over ₹ 1 lakh digging up farms pond measuring 20x20 feet and three metres deep each. “These farm ponds can hold 8.5 lakh litres of rain water,” explained DRDA assistant project director S. Prasuna Rani.
Labourer to owner
Mr. Nagaraju was working as an agriculture labourer and it was his and his family’s dream to own a piece of land. “The land purchase scheme came like a blessing. The land gives us a new confidence. The farm pond idea is too great,” he said.
According to him, of the 10 beneficiaries, he benefited the most from the farm pond. His pond holds water for nine months and even in summer, it still holds dead storage enough for drinking water needs of cattle. He fitted a motor to the pond to irrigate half-acre paddy and 2.5 acres of cotton field.
As a goodwill gesture, DRDA project director Y. Sekhar Reddy has distributed 550 fingerlings free to the farmers who adopted the farm ponds. Mr. Nagaraju could earn ₹25,000 in six months from the sale of 2.5 tonnes of fish. “The income from fish is unexpected. The DRDA officials are so kind that they gave me another pack of fingerlings free,” he said.
Veggies and teak
Ms. Prasuna Rani said the DRDA rural district spent over ₹86 crore and got over 9,000 farm ponds grounded across 14 mandals in the district.
“Irrespective of caste, all the small and marginal farmers are getting benefits from the DRDA. Some farmers were given vegetable pandals and some free teak plants and money to sustain them for three years,” she explained.
A vegetable pandal is made up of cement poles and GI wire over which a canopy is erected by the farmers. This is used to grow climbers like bitter gourd, bottle gourd, kheera, etc., protected from rodents. For teak plants, ₹20 per plant per month is given to farmers for three years to sustain them.
