PANDAVAPURA/MANDYA: A tall tree in the midst of paddy and sugarcane farms in Pandavapura’s Damada Halli, in Mandya, stands witness to the worsening water and agrarian crisis in the district. Farmer Narayana Gowda, in February, after facing crop loss and an increasing burden of debt, hanged himself to death from it.
Nanjunde Gowda can relate to Narayana’s distress. Nanjunde Gowda, who has grown sugarcane in one-and-a-half acres of arable land, says that 60% of his crop was lost because water did not reach it. Water had been released in June gushing into the canals, but the sub-canals had not been desilted. These choked up waterways could not carry enough water into the fields.
Damada Halli, which falls under Melukote assembly constituency, lost its MLA K S Puttannaiah from Karnataka Sarvodaya Paksha recently. A powerful political figure, he was known to have raised farmers’ concerns with the state leadership. In the coming elections, his son Darshan Puttannaiah, who has been running a software company in the US for the last ten years, will contest as a Swaraj India candidate.
Congress is not fielding a candidate, supporting instead Darshan. BJP’s candidate is Manjunath and JD-S has Puttaraju contesting from here.
Popular sentiments run in favour of senior Puttannaiah, but farmer Chandrashekar D P is disappointed with him. He says, “At an event, the former MLA informed the farmers that canals and sub canals had been cleared of silt and modernised spending `1,400 crore. But nothing is showing on the ground.” In villages — Elekere, Damada Halli, Betta halli, Haruvu and Haralukuppe — most of the sub canals are filled with silt.
These poorly managed waterways are damaging ragi crops, sowed in November. Sub-canals into these fields have been properly maintained and therefore water from KRS dam, instead of flowing into sugarcane fields, flowed easily through these. But, this excess water wrecked the standing ragi crop.
Ragi requires less water than paddy. Another farmer Abhishek says that the irrigation department had directed the farmers in Mandya not to grow paddy as the first crop, because less rainfall had been predicted. But it rained well this year.
Farmers have now grown paddy as their second crop, he says, because Puttannaiah had promised them that water would be released on time. But Puttannaiah is no more, and farmers can go to no one with their worry. “We have been told that water will be released on April 23 (water is released at intervals of 20 days and for 20 days) and that will be last release till monsoon. We need more water to sustain paddy as well as sugarcane.” Chandrashekar says the situation is the same across Mandya.
In such troubled times, the Cauvery dispute and the role of the central government run by Bharatiya Janata Party in resolving it can swing votes. Tamil Nadu is seeking to form the Cauvery Management Board that will adversely impact Mandya, says Nanjunde Gowda. “How can we release water to Tamil Nadu when our farmers are dying of hunger,” he asks.
Professor Bore Gowda campaigning for Darshan Puttannaiah says that there was good rainfall this year, but the dam with a capacity of 124 ft is not full. “But that is because rainfall was below average the previous years,” he says, adding that this has had a cascading effect on the storage of water.
This time the highest level the water reached was 110 ft. At present, water is at 76 ft and there is only 12 TMC of water and 8 TMC is dead storage, which cannot be used either for irrigation nor for drinking. Professor Gowda does not believe that Cauvery dispute will be an election issue.
Nanjunde Gowda says, “If you are a rich farmer, you have more land, more workers and you can bear the loss. If you are poor, you can tide over these hard time working as a labourer. I am born into a middle-class family. I have to take out loans to invest in crop. If I loose….” Gowda points to the tree from which Narayana Gowda ended his life.
Farmer leader’s son to contest this election
Darshan Puttannaiah, son of former MLA K S Puttannaiah will be contesting from Melkote constituency. He says that after his father’s demise, people of this region insisted that he contests. But would he understand the problems of farmers, since he was in the US for 10 long years, running a software company? “I would be lying if I say I understand,” he says. “But I can empathise with them and that should help me resolve their problems.” Sunita Puttannaiah, wife of Puttannaiah, is vociferously campaigning for her son.Aliquisit volorehenis ex essin consed quia as explacc ullorporibus dolorep