The Hindu : Karnataka News : Recharged wells revive their hopes

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Friday, Nov 02, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Recharged wells revive their hopes

Suresh Bhat

Farmers’ interest in agriculture has been revived

Farmer Yallappa Jambagi sits near a recharged tank at Ittangihal village in Bijapur taluk.

ITTANGIHAL (BIJAPUR DISTRICT): It seems that good days have returned for the people of this tiny habitation thanks to recharged tanks and borewells in their agriculture fields. A few water percolation bunds constructed in the village hillock have made all the difference for them.

Meet the ecstatic 70-year-old Yallappa Jambagi, a marginal farmer. The recharged field-well has revived his passion for agriculture after seven long years.

The well, which is full, has enabled him to take up rabi sowing that he could not do in the recent past.

Besides onion and groundnut, he has grown maize and bajra, and is expecting a bumper harvest. He is even thinking of growing commercial crops such as sugarcane.

Moreover, his hopes of coming out of the debt trap have been rekindled. “I was not able to repay the loan premium for the last four years. But this time I will pay back at least half the loan sum of Rs. 50,000,” said the confident farmer.

According to Ittangihal Gram Panchayat chairman Vasant Tangadi, the water-table in the village has gone up and all the borewells have started yielding water again. The increased agriculture activities have minimised the migration of labourers this season, he said.

A check-dam across the nala at Tajpur, another village in Tikota revenue circle, has also changed the farmers’ fortunes. Ramlinga Ranahatti, a progressive farmer, lost his vineyard for want of water two years ago but this season he replanted grapevines thanks to his rejuvenated borewell alongside the check-dam.

According to S.B. Diddimani, District Watershed Development Officer, rainwater harvesting was the only way to beat the scarcity condition in the district that is in rain-deficit zone. The average annual rainfall of the district is 578 mm. People have realised this, and demand for rainwater harvesting schemes has been on the rise.

As many as 946 check-dams, 530 percolation pits and 3,438 nala-bunds have been constructed covering 2,31,110 hectares of land in the district in the last 20 years, and results have been encouraging. In the next and final phase, such structures would be created covering 3,94,862 hectares of land, he told The Hindu.

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