The Hindu : Krishna delta panel steps up stir

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 15, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Krishna delta panel steps up stir

By Our Special Correspondent

VIJAYAWADA SEPT. 14. Even as the TDP Government is considering the political ramifications in releasing 10,000 cusecs of water from the Nagarjunasagar to Krishna delta, the all-party action committee has intensified its agitation and organised rasta rokos in all delta mandals leading to tension in Janardhanapuram village of Nandiwada mandal today. The committee plans to take the agitation to a climax and settle the issue at the District Development Review Committee (DDRC) meeting slated for September 18 at Machilipatnam.

The committee called upon farmers to lay siege of all irrigation offices in the delta on Monday. Meanwhile, the indefinate fast of the eight leaders, including three MLAs entered the second day today.

The former Union Minister, P. Upendra, and the former Zilla Parishad chairman, Pinnamaneni Koteswara Rao, visited the camp and extended their support.

Following the call given by the Krishna Delta Protection Committee, about 500 farmers of Janardhanapuram staged a rasta roko on the Machilipatnam-Nuzvid-Kallur State highway today. Led by the TDP leader, Nagi Reddy, they parked 20 tractors across the road and removed their wheels.

As the traffic came to a halt, police entered the scene and arrested 70 farmers. Enraged by this, other farmers insisted that they should also be arrested. They walked from Janardhanapuram to Gudivada along with the arrested leaders and staged a rasta roko again for two hours at the taluk police station. They dispersed only after the arrested persons were released on self-bond.

As officials started releasing 6,000 cusecs from Nagarjunasagar, the inflows at Prakasam barrage increased to 3,000 cusecs this afternoon and are expected to go up to 5,000 cusecs by midnight today.

The District Collector, K. Prabhakara Reddy, told The Hindu here today that they would supply enough water for transplanting paddy crop in tail-end areas such as Bantumilli, Malleswaram, Machilipatnam, Avanigadda, etc by Tuesday. Arrangements had been made to supply water to canals on rotation basis.

He said paddy crop had been transplanted on 2.5 lakh acres till now and might go up by one lakh acres more by the month-end. So they would not need more than 5,000 cusecs of water to meet the needs of both nurseries and transplanted crop at this stage. While some farmers raised the crop in August, others are expected to transplant or take up direct sowings upto month end. So irrigation officials would be required to supply water till December end.

"So unless the available water is sparingly, the delta would exhaust its allotment of 80 tmcft from Nagarjunasagar soon and face problems later,'' he argued.

But the agitating leaders refuted his contention. They said that most of the farmers in tailend areas gave up their hopes as their nurseries had withered away in the last couple of days. Yet the delta needed 10,000 cusecs to save standing crop and also expedite transplantation wherever possible. "Nothing can be done with 5,000 cusecs,'' said the fasting MLA, Mandali Budha Prasad.

Meanwhile, the TDP Government finds itself in a quandary. If it releases 10,000 cusecs of water to Krishna delta, it would have to face the wrath of the Rayalaseema region on the one hand and on the other give political mileage to the Congress, which is leading the agitation in the delta.

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