NALGONDA: Severe drought-like conditions have prevailed across the district since the beginning of the monsoon season. In view of the El Nino threat forecast by the Meteorological department, irrigation and agriculture officials, along with public representatives, advised farmers to cultivate short-duration dryland crops requiring less water instead of water-intensive crops such as cotton and paddy.
However, farmers largely ignored the advisories and extensively cultivated paddy and cotton, relying on borewells and hoping for rains. Of the total cultivable area of 11,23,750 acres in the district, cultivation took place on 9,92,040 acres this season, with paddy and cotton alone accounting for 9,54,535 acres. Dryland crops such as red gram, black gram and green gram were sown on only 37,505 acres.
Widespread rainfall during the last week of June and in July, along with inflows into the Srisailam reservoir, led farmers to anticipate that Nagarjunasagar would fill up. This prompted extensive paddy transplantation, including in the command area, resulting in significant crop coverage across the district.
While cotton sowing began around June 10, paddy transplantation continued until the end of August in several areas. With cotton taking around 180 days and paddy around 120 days to mature, the lack of adequate rainfall over the past few weeks has already resulted in nearly 80% of the cotton crop drying up across the district. Agriculture officials are also concerned that 30–40% of the paddy crop could dry up.
As a large extent of paddy was cultivated in August, officials released water to fill tanks under the Nagarjunasagar Left Canal. This helped recharge groundwater levels, improving borewell inflows and providing some relief to farmers within the canal network.
However, with the Meteorological department forecasting the onset of a ‘Super El Nino’ phase in the state from September and warning of prolonged dry conditions across South Telangana, concerns over water availability have intensified. Climate models indicate that the situation could continue in the district until June next year, prompting the government to prioritise reserving the available reservoir water strictly for drinking purposes.
Farmers are expressing anguish as standing crops wither amid dry weather and acute water scarcity. N Ramulu, a cotton farmer from Kanagal mandal, said they had taken loans of more than Rs 30,000 per acre to purchase seeds and fertilisers, hoping for a good yield after the early rains in June and July.
He said that with no rain for a month and temperatures remaining high, cotton plants were drying up without producing bolls. With borewells also drying up, farmers are unable to recover even their basic investment, he said.
Amid the worsening situation, Nalgonda Collector B Chandrashekar expressed displeasure with AEOs for failing to motivate farmers to take up alternative dryland crops despite the weather advisories. He instructed officials to immediately issue memos to the concerned AEOs for failing to discharge their duties responsibly.
