Delay in arrival of monsoon and scanty rainfall experienced this year has added to the woes of the farmers of Jagatsinghpur district.
Due to deficient rainfall, agriculture activities in Balikuda, Erasama and Naugaon blocks have been badly hit. In few areas, they have not yet started. Virtually, a drought like situation prevails over the coastal region. District emergency department sources informed that in August, the actual rainfall was recorded at 348.29 mm against the normal rainfall of 379.01mm, while in July it was 205.94mm against normal rainfall 277.03mm.
In June, the rainfall got reduced to 41mm against average rains of 222.03mm, while in May, 93.75mm rainfall was recorded, which was 15 mm in excess of the normal in the district here. While report added that in the month of August, maximum rainfall occurred in Kujanga block, Balikuda block received the lowest rainfall (68mm). In June and July, Balikuda too experienced less rainfall than normal. Usually, normal rainfall is essential from June to August for the Kharif agricultural activities, especially for paddy cultivation, but the situation has turned bad for the non irrigated land due to scarce rainfall. If there is no rain in coming days, the situation will turn worse, warned district agriculture officer Nilamani Das.
District agriculture department sources said of about 98,000 hectares of land, irrigation from the Taladanda canal and Machhagaon canal is available for 34,083 hectares of land while about 15,000 hectares land depend on lift irrigation points, sallow tube wells and Mahanadi barrage water source. The rest heavily depends on rainfall for cultivating paddy.
Every year, usually paddy is taken up over 22,285 hectares of land in the district. However, this year scanty rainfall is a major worry. Farmers from Balikuda and Naugaon blocks have been the worst affected. A few of them complained that due to meagre rain, agriculture works were behind schedule. Due to the prevailing drought, cracks have surfaced over vast patches of land, as even where irrigation is available, non functioning of lift irrigation points has compounded the farmers woes.
They expressed their anxiety and fear that if the situation continued, the paddy yielding would be drastically reduced. Sources informed that about 43,000 hectares of paddy crops have been severely hit due to measly rain in coastal blocks of Balikuda, Naugaon and Erasama. Meanwhile, taking the alarming situation into account, the district administration had convened an emergency meeting to chalk out a plan to mitigate the problem on Monday, where senior officers from departments like agriculture, irrigation, lift irrigation and drainage division took part. District Collector SK Mallick held talks with irrigation and lift irrigation departments’ engineers and instructed them to take the needful steps to tackle the difficult situation effectively.
However, the lift irrigation department officials said that out of 623 lift irrigation (lI) points, 387 were functional, while about 6,000 sallow tube wells were defunct. The water flowing in Machhagaon canal was unable to reach tail end of Balikuda area, they stated. The meeting endorsed immediate restoration of the defunct lI points and sallow tube wells across the district. The irrigation department authorities were told to develop the Machhagaon canal’s 16 A, 16 B, 19 A 19 B branch canals, while the agriculture department officials were instructed to conduct spot survey where drought like situation prevailed.