ANANTAPUR: The Irrigation Advisory Board (IAB) of the district has decided to release water to the ayacut under the Tungabhadra Right High Level Canal (HLC) from August 4. It has been proposed to give water to 1,08,650 acres under all sub-systems of the HLC in the kharif season in Anantapur, Kurnool and Kadapa districts.

At a meeting held under the chairmanship of district Collector Dasari Kadmial here on Monday, the board suggested the farmers to cultivate crops with a maximum duration of 120 days, as water would not be given later. Further, the farmers were asked to give preference to irrigated dry crops and urged not to raise long-duration crops like chilli and cotton.

Call for publicity

Asking the Agriculture Department to encourage the cultivation of SRI variety paddy, which consumes lesser water, the Collector directed the Joint Director of Agriculture P. Pothaiah to take up publicity to create awareness among farmers on the cultivation. Pamphlets would be printed and distributed in ayacut villages.

Joint Collector Anita Rajendra suggested the agriculture officials to take the help of farmers who had secured good yield with SRI paddy cultivation, as the farming community would believe their peers more than the words of officials.

The board also decided to act tough against tapping of water and illegal ayacut. The Collector directed the irrigation, revenue and agriculture departments to form joint teams to take up inspection of the canals and remove the motor pumpsets installed on the canal banks to lift the water illegally.

Superintending engineer of HLC P. Somi Reddy was asked to take up a campaign against the tapping of water with the help of the distribution of pamphlets.

Tough stance sought

The Joint Collector asked the joint teams to be ruthless against the tapping of water and illegal ayacut as the Government responsibility was to ensure water only to the localised ayacut. She told the teams not to hesitate even to destroy crops taken up with HLC water in non-ayacut area.

While water to the ayacut under High Level Main Canal (HLMC) and Guntakal Branch Canal (GBC) would be released from August 4, the ayacut under Mid Pennar North Canal (MPNC), Mid Pennar South Canal (MPSC), Tadipatri Branch Canal (TBC) and Pulivendula Branch Canal (PBC) would be given water from August 20.

Stating that water availability to HLC was assessed at 22.842 tmcft this year on pro-rata basis, the Collector explained that allocations for different sub-systems were 4.312 tmcft to HLMC, 3.889 to GBC, 2.438 to MPSC, 1.055 to MPNC, 2.088 to TBC, 2.483 to PBC, 2.257 to Mylavaram reservoir and 4.5 tmcft to drinking water needs.

Of the 1,08,650-acre ayacut proposed for the year, 75,850 acres was in Anantapur and Kurnool districts and the remaining 32,800 in Kadapa district.

In Anantapur district, water would be given to wet crops in 29,100 acres and to irrigated dry crops in 46,750 acres (including a couple of thousands acres under Alur sub-branch canl in Kurnool district).

Only officials had participated in the meeting as the election code of conduct kept the Ministers, legislators and members of Parliament away from the meeting.

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