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Paddy sowing hits new low
Continuous dry spell, drying up of borewells and dead storage levels in the irrigation projects has resulted in steep fall in paddy cultivation this year. Out of 10.59 lakh hectares, paddy was sown only in 75,000 hectares so far as against 1.05 lakh hectares in 2014.
Hyderabad: Continuous dry spell, drying up of borewells and dead storage levels in the irrigation projects has resulted in steep fall in paddy cultivation this year. Out of 10.59 lakh hectares, paddy was sown only in 75,000 hectares so far as against 1.05 lakh hectares in 2014.
This is said to be the lowest paddy sown area registered in the last three years. Official data points out that no paddy cultivation was taken up in Adilabad district for the second consecutive year. The total sown area identified under paddy cultivation in the district is 56,296 hectares.
The lowest area of paddy cultivation was reported in Medak (525 hectares). In districts like Khammam the area under cultivation is (673 hectares), followed by Ranga Reddy (2804), Nizamabad (10,847), Warangal (11,050), Nalgonda (13,452), Mahbubnagar (14,529) and Karimangar 21,225 hectares.
The cultivation of other food grains -like Jowar, Bajra, Maize, Ragi and coarse grain has also come down. In all, the sown area of all the food grains (including paddy) was only 6.97 lakh hectares as against 20.65 lakh hectares estimated by the State Agriculture Department this year, which means that only 58 per cent of the cultivable land was sown.
Secretary Agriculture C Pardhasaradhi informed The Hans India that the farmers were reluctant to sow paddy and other rain fed food grain crops in view of deficit rain fall and depletion of ground water levels. An unusual situation was prevailing in Telangana State which received only 230.5 mm of rain fall as against 715.1 mm normal rainfall.
Due to deficit rainfall, all the major reservoirs in the state were holding only 214.15 TMC of water as against 294.30 TMC last year. Except Tungabhadra reservoir, all the others have received ‘zero’ inflows, the official told The Hans India quoting figures furnished by the Irrigation department.
“We are expecting that the state will receive good rains next one month as predicted by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD),” the official said. However a ‘contingency plan’ has been prepared to overcome the crisis under which the farmers will be encouraged to take up dry crops like sunflower, red gram, black gram and castor in place of rain fed crops, if the dry spell continues for another three weeks in the State, he added.
By:Patan Afzal Babu
