The Hindu : Karnataka / Gulbarga News : Farmers complain of misdirected relief works

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 20, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Gulbarga

Farmers complain of misdirected relief works

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA, DEC. 19. Dried up tanks, the devastated agricultural lands, and woes of the farming community who have suffered losses owing to the failure of crops were the issues that the two-member Central team that visited Afzalpur and Gulbarga taluks to study drought conditions focused on.

The team — Venkatesan, Director of the Rural Development Ministry, and Anupam Bari, Director of the Directorate of Cotton Development — accompanied by the Medical Education Secretary and secretary in-charge of the district, Prasad, the Deputy Commissioner, Anjum Parvez, the chief executive officer of the zilla panchayat, M.S. Srikar, and the Joint Director of the Department of Agriculture, Hanumanthaiah, visited Gobbur Tank and fields in a whistle stop tour of the affected areas.

Scanty rainfall

The farmers of the command areas of the Gobbur tank in Afzalpur taluk complained about the misdirected relief works taken up by the district administration, which had deprived them of water from the tank. The main grouse of the farmers was that the authorities had failed to take up works to facilitate the use of water from the tank and had taken up the de-silting works in a spot that would not help the flow of water in the canals.

The team also visited devastated banana fields at Chowdapur and Chowdapur tanda. The entire crop had dried up owing to the failure of rains and falling levels in the borewells and openwells in the taluk. The conditions of sunflower and cotton fields were also similar.

The pod formation in these fields was affected owing to scanty rainfall.

The central team acknowledged that the loss of yield was substantial in crops such as sunflower, rabi jowar, and red gram in the district.

Memorandum

The district administration gave a video presentation of the agricultural situation and sought a total of Rs. 61.04 crores for tackling drought in the district.

Mr. Parvez and Mr. Srikar, who submitted a detailed memorandum to the team, said that the district required a sum of Rs. 3.5 crores for solving the drinking water crisis in rural areas, Rs. 3 crores for meeting the shortage of drinking water in the urban areas till March 2005, Rs. 53.28 crores for taking up employment generation works, and Rs. 1.26 crores for the Department of Animal Husbandry to take up works such as growing fodder and meeting transportation expenditure of the fodder.

The district administration also sought 61,732 tonnes of foodgrains under the food-for-work programme to take up drought relief works.

Moisture stress

Mr. Parvez said that of the total 3.1-lakh hectares under red gram cultivation, 1.41-lakh hectares was affected owing to moisture stress.

The estimated loss of yield of the crop is more than 3.72-lakh quintals, he said. Similarly, of the total 3.08-lakh hectares under rabi jowar, 1.3-lakh hectares was affected. The estimated loss of yield of jowar is 6.3-lakh quintals.

He said that the bengal gram and sunflower crops were also affected by moisture stress. Of the total 1.43-lakh hectares under bengal gram cultivation, 59,000 hectares was affected and the estimated loss of yield was 1.75-lakh quintals.

Of the total 54,591 hectares of sunflower crop, 26,070 hectares was affected and estimated loss of yield was 82,000 quintals.

Drought: Central teams

to meet senior officials

today: Page 5

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