Mayadhar Naik, a small farmer of Haldimunda village of Nuapada district, was sitting on the bank of a dry canal running through his agricultural land, fixinhis eyes on his land.
“The small seedlings are drying due to shortage of water,” he said unmindfully, when asked what was he gazing. looking at the drying paddy seedlings one can easily guess what Mayadhar might have been thinking. The rain has stopped for more than a week. Mayadhar had sown paddy seed in his land expecting that rain would continue which had started in mid-June. “But it has completely stopped after a week of scanty rain,” he said.
“What about the canal. Is it not feeding water” asked this correspondent and what Mayadhar answered was startling. “It never carried water since it was built,” he said and requested me to follow him along the canal bank. Udhaba Majhi, Udesing Majhi and some other farmers joined us and our walk across the canal area started.
The canal starts from Khotlabhata Minor Irrigation Project (MIP) near Kurlubhata village of Kendumunda Gram Panchayat in Sinapali block. A cemented display board provides some information on the MIP. The construction was completed in February 2011 at a cost of Rs 1.43 crore. The MIP is now completely dry.
“Now you can feel why we are worried,” said the villagers. “The structure never fed water to the lands as claimed by the MI department. We warned them that it would not be feasible, but they did not listen,” they added.
As per the display board, the length of the main canal of the MIP is 7,080 m. and including other branch canals as stated, the total canal length is more than 10 km. But the villagers say that the total length of the canal is just about three km. “The distance of Kaitpadar village, where the canal is proposed to end from the dam site is 5 km in total. How can a 7 km long canal be dug,” asks Patiram Ghibela of Kaitpadar village. “The canal if completed would end at Kaitpadar village running through Sialati, Haldimunda and Chhot darlipada villages. It was stopped half way near Chhotigudi of Darlipada village as the villagers did not give land. Thus the total length would be less than 3 km,” he further informs and adds that the information given on the display board is false. The display board claims that the command area of the MIP is 245 hectares in Kharif season. “This is a complete lie. The level of the canal is lower than our lands, how can it feed waterIJ It does not feed rather drains the water from our lands,” said the villagers.
One interesting piece of information came from the villagers on the selection of site for the MIP. The construction site identified during the survey was a place called Khotlabhata near Sardhapur village of Khairpadar GP across a stream called Thipakhol Nalla, which would have irrigated more than 3,000 acres of land as per the information of the villagers. “But, God knows, why the site was changed to the Medhar Nalla near Kurlubhata village,” ask the villagers. They also could not inform why the name Khutlabhata was given to the MIP even after the shifting of the site.
Another complaint of the people was non-payment of compensation to land owners. “About 60 acres of land has been acquired from farmers of different villages but they have not yet been paid compensation,” says lingaraj Ghibela, a BJP leader, who smells a rat in the whole process, starting from the shifting of site to the construction of the canals.
“There should be a Vigilance investigation of the work to dig out the corruption. We should also know what benefit it gave to farmers, as it is a complete wastage of public money so far,” he demanded.