ONGOLE: With the prevailing severe drought-like conditions in the western parts of Prakasam district, the only option left for the farmers is to hope for rainfall to safeguard their dying crops.Several areas in the Western Prakasam, including Konakanamitla, Podili, Komarolu, Hanumanthuni Padu, Donakonda, Giddalur, Kurichedu, Racherla, SN Padu and Kanigiri are facing severe water scarcity problems due to deficit rainfall. Some of the regions in the district have not even received a drizzle bringing respite to their dire situation.
Farmers opine that had the Veligonda project completed, the western parts of Prakasam as well as Kadapa and Nandyal districts would not have faced the present situation.While most of the farmers are looking helplessly at the withering crops, few dared to ensure needed wetting to the crops by bringing water tanks from other parts. However, it is proving to be insufficient. Crops such as lemon, papaya, red gram, tobacco, red chilies, black gram, maize, jowar and ragi are severely affected due to the prevailing drought-like conditions in the region.
Determined to irrigate their crops, farmers of Konakanamitla mandal have sunk over 1,000 water borewells in the last three months by spending nearly Rs 5 crore. On an average, each farmer had sunk around four to five bore wells to a depth of 400 feet to 600 feet. In some cases the depth has even reached 1,000 feet. But all these efforts and money spent has gone waste, as none of those bore wells yielded results.
There are 26 villages in the Konakanamitla mandal limits having around 11,000 hectares of cultivable lands. Due to the deficit rainfall, farmers of these regions have cultivated only 50-55 per cent of land for the Kharif season. Similarly farmers of Podili, Donakonda, Giddalur, Markapur, Kanigiri, Kurichedu, Bestavaripeta, CS Puram and SN Padu in Western Prakasam region had restrained themselves to cultivate below 60 per cent of the cultivable lands.
“We have cultivated papaya in our 3.5 acres of land and now the plants are dehydrated and turned lean due to lack of water for irrigation. We are trying our level best to safeguard the plants by providing some water from a distant borewell on a daily rent basis which costs us around Rs 2,500 per day. We have spent nearly Rs 5.60 lakh for this 3.5-acre papaya crop,” rued G Ramana Reddy, a papaya farmer from Konakanamitla.
Another farmer, M Srinivasa Rao from Putlurivari Palem expressed his agony over the water scarcity and said, “Two months ago, we dug 5 bore-well points with around 400 ft depth spending Rs 3 lakh. But our efforts went in vain as there is no ground water. This is not only our fate but all the farmers in the 20-30 km radius of our village.”