Anantapur: Ryots agitated as rains play truant even in rabi

Anantapur: With the rains playing truant, an atmosphere of gloom prevails in the farmers’ camp. The same drought conditions that existed during the kharif season persist even now after the advent of the rabi season in October.

If the monsoon does not turn active in the next few days, the farmers will have to resign themselves for another period of dry spell, they lament. In Anantapur district, sowing was carried out to a mere extend of 28 per cent of the total area of cultivation while in Sri Sathya Sai district it is 20 per cent. This indicates the magnitude of drought conditions in the undivided district.

During rabi season, the normal sowing acreage is 3,88,893 acres but in the present rabi season, it has been reduced to only 99,814 acres. This indicates that sowing was not done in more than two-thirds of the land. Split chik peas is normally raised in 2,06,477 acres but the cultivation has been taken up in a mere 69,713 acres. Paddy is normally cultivated in 27,784 acres but presently its acreage has fallen to 1,871 acres. Maize is down to a mere 4,895 acres out of the normal area of cultivation of 25,0053 acres. Similarly groundnut is confined to 78,283 acres out of 9, 42,540 acres. Similarly the area of cultivation of other crops including sunflower, millets and pulses etc., has all declined by two thirds of the original sowing area. While the normal rainfall in rabi season is 100.09 mm, the rainfall recorded in the present rabi season is just 6.4 mm.