The applications of more than 1,200 farmers of Nuapada district for digging of bore-wells under Biju Krushak Vikash Yojana are pending with the Odisha lift Irrigation Corporation (OlIC) for last one year.
The farmers have deposited Rs20,000 each towards beneficiary contribution and are waiting for the rig machines to arrive to their villages.
The Government of Odisha launched the scheme in 2010-11 to explore ground water resources in hard rock areas of the State with an objective to provide irrigation facilities to small and marginal farmers through installation of deep bore-wells covering cultivated area of minimum two hectares. Nuapada is one of the twenty six districts of the State under the coverage of the scheme.
“I deposited Rs20,000 in February 2015 with the OlIC. They said that, the well would be dug within two to three months, but now even after a year and a half they have not arrived,” said Anamika Majhi, a tribal widow of Karngamal village.
Agriculture is her only source of livelihood, which failed last year due to lack of rain. She is facing a hard time to manage her family. “How much I wished the work would be done in time and I would not depend upon rain during the current Kharif,” she lamented.
Badyanath Panda of Karngamal village is another applicant. He has three sons and one of them is doing agriculture. “We planned that one of my sons would take care of agriculture, instead of going for a job, but the OlIC has shattered our dream. We are waiting for a year and half by now for the bore well to be installed, but the OlIC is not cooperating,” Panda rued.
Seven farmers of Karngamal village, including two women farmers, have applied online for the scheme and have deposited the required amount in February 2015, but bore well is yet to be dug. In Boden block the total applicants are 76 and all of them have the same experience to share. likewise, the number of applicants who have fulfilled all formalities including deposit of the contributions in Khariar is 124 while it is 59 in Sinapali block. The achievement in these two blocks is also nil.
More than 1,400 farmers of the district have applied this year online for bore well under the scheme and all of them have deposited their respective contributions, but only 400 wells have been installed so far. The SDO, OlIC, Khariar, however, does not have any explanation about the slow progress; neither does he have any reason about the pendency of applications for months.
The SDO informed that the tender for installation of 150 more bore wells has been offered recently. “How can the machine enter in to the filed after the arrival of rain,” asked the farmers. It is learnt that, tender is allocated at Executive Engineer level for installation of 150 bore wells in one phase and the process for subsequent phase is initiated after the submission of completion report of the previous phase and this is the cause of pendency of a large number of applications.
“It is sheer negligence by the OlIC. Farmers are committing suicide here due to failure of crops. An assured water source for irrigation would bring a lot of changes in agriculture scenario in water starved areas of Nuapada. But these officials don’t seem to realise the importance of bore wells for the farmer,” said Nuapada Zilla BJP Krushak Morcha president Sanjay Tiwari. These officials should be made accountable for the suicide of farmers, he demanded. Meanwhile, the farmers have appealed to the district Collector for quick redressal of their grievance.