The Hindu : Rain brings hope to farmers in Gulbarga District

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 17, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Rain brings hope to farmers in Gulbarga District

By T.V.Sivanandan

GULBARGA Oct. 16. Incessant rains in the past four days have revived the hopes of farmers in the region of not only saving standing crops but also resuming rabi sowing, which came to a standstill because of lack of rains in September.

Sources told The Hindu here on Wednesday that Gulbarga District received widespread rainfall in all taluks, which revived the main crop of the region, red gram. Although the rainfall would not help in improving the yield, it would prevent further damage to the crop.

Sources said rabi sowing, which was only 1.2 per cent trill the end of September, had increased to 15 per cent in the first week of October. Sowing was likely to pick up in the next few days.

The Agriculture Department officials were confident that the target area of 6.20 lakh hectares for rabi crop would be covered in a couple of weeks and expected the area under the rabi crop to go up marginally this year because of good rains.

As against the normal 81.35 mm rainfall in October, the sources said, the district had so far received 128.29 mm rainfall. The feature of the rainfall is that it has been widespread and uniform in all taluks.

Surpur recorded the highest rainfall of 156.7 mm. rainfall followed by Shahpur (155.7 mm.), Afzalpur (148.33 mm.), Chincholi (135 mm.), Jewargi (133 mm.), Aland (128.5 mm.), Sedam (119.09 mm.), Yadgir (106.8 mm.), Gulbarga (100 mm.), and Chitapur (99 mm.). The district received 81 per cent of the rainfall in October in the last four days. However, the officials said that although the rains would help in reviving sowing, the rainfall would not be sufficient to help the rabi crop to survive till harvest. The rabi crop would require a few good spells of rain when the crop was in the growth stage, not only for its survival but also for good vegetative growth which would help fetch a good yield.

Sources said the rains had helped farmers temporarily overcome the problem of pest menace in the red gram crop with the heavy rains washing off the eggs and larvae in the plants. However, if the present overcast conditions continued for a few more days, then the pest menace would become more severe. Though the rains filled many tanks in the district, the officials were not sure whether it would help recharge the groundwater levels to solve the drinking water scarcity in many parts of the district.

After continuous and incessant rainfall from October 12, there was respite today, official sources said. Damage caused by rains in the district was being assessed, they added.

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