TUMAKURU: The rain that lashed Madhugiri taluk on Sunday night changed the fortune of Anjinappa, a mango farmer. His huge farm pond, which is of 1 crore litre capacity filled to its brim.
Anjinappa, a BE (Civil), hails from Devanahalli in Bengaluru Rural district. He had got the pond dug a couple of years ago when the three bore wells on his 40-acre mango farm dried up. He had invested Rs 13 lakh including Rs 5.5 lakh subsidy from the horticulture department.
The 180X180 foot pond with 15-foot depth overflew following the incessant rains.
"Now I am more than happy that the water stored would be sufficient for a year for 4,000 mango trees and moreover my borewells also got recharged", Anjinappa said, suggesting that the farmers should dig such ponds to overcome water scarcity.
The farmer had actually shot into fame a couple of years ago when the horticulture department had picked his farm for the mango picking tourism.
"This time, due to Covid-19 situation that (mango picking tourism) did not happen but I managed to do doorstep delivery at apartments in Bengaluru and did not incur any loss", he revealed.
A record rainfall
Tumakuru received an average of record 24 mm rains. Kunigal had the highest rainfall (43 mm) followed by Koratagere (40 mm) and Madhugiri (35).
"Almost all the taluks received the rains and it's a single-day record since January for the district", informed joint director for agriculture Rajasulochana quoting the statistics from the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre.