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Severe drought conditions prevail in Warangal district
With no rains during the current monsoon season the farming community was left high and dry just like the standing crops which have been withering for lack of water.
Farmers faced to raise maize instead of paddy
Warangal: With no rains during the current monsoon season the farming community was left high and dry just like the standing crops which have been withering for lack of water.
The farmers in the season were flabbergasted due to lack of rains and irregular power supply. As a result, a severe crisis was looming large in agrarian front in the district, akin to all the other districts in Telangana State.
The farmers who lost hope on water greedy paddy crop have decided to take up alternative crops that need less water following the suggestions by agricultural scientists. The farmers have sown maize in large extents of land.
According to official sources, maize was sown in 50,389 hectares in the district as against the normal extent of 46,000 hectares. Nevertheless they were unable to feed water to the crop owning to power problem and continuation of dry spell.
The District Agricultural Technology and Transfer (DATT) Centre Director R Uma Reddy who visited the maize fields recently has made some suggestions to save the crop.
He cautioned that maize should be watered immediately to prevent damage to the crop. “Some of the farmers preferring to feed paddy and cotton instead of maize, but the maize crop is at tasseling stage and needs water urgently.”
He opined that a large number of farmers have taken a risk by going for cultivation of cotton that requires more expenditure and water when compared to maize.
“But the farmers were focusing on saving paddy and cotton crops, at the expense of maize,” he said. Paddy could be given irrigation on rotation basis and foliar spray of water and nutrients would be enough for cotton. Maize should be irrigated as it reaches harvesting time soon. It might be noted that owing to monsoon failure the extent of paddy has come down drastically in the district. The normal sowing extend of paddy was 1.42 lakh hectares but this time the crop was sown only in 52,150 hectares.
The farmers in the district took up cultivation of cotton in 2.29 lakh hectares as against the normal sowing area of 2.4 lakh hectares.
Meanwhile, district secretary of CPI(ML) New Democracy Chandranna has demanded the state government to declare the district as drought affected one. The government should start making plans to support the farmers who were in distress. There was no rain and no power in villages, the water in tanks reached rock bottom level at majority places. On the other hand farmers were being supplied just four hours of power which was not sufficient to meet their needs, he said. Chandranna urged the government to alert the district administration to assess the situation.
It might be noted that in the month of August as on 21, the district witnessed only 4 rainy days as against 10 rainy days last year. The amount of deviation from normal rainfall was about 72.3 percent. From June 1 to August 21, the district received only 282.9 mm of rainfall as against the normal rainfall of 586.3 mm.
