Bengaluru: Dried up crops, empty irrigation channels and sunken faces of farmers welcome any visitor to Gubbi taluk of Tumakuru district due to failure of the rains.
There is no hope left for thousands of farmers in this district who have been victims of nature’s fury for the last three years. Whatever they have invested in crops has gone waste. Traditional crops like Ragi and pulses are withering for want of rain. Small and marginal farmers are worst hit and are not sure of their future.
Even the underground water table has dropped by 1500 feet. Hundreds of borewells too have dried up forcing people to walk miles to fetch a potful of water.
"We have lost everything. Every month bankers come to villages to recover loans. The channel that passes through our villages has not received a drop of water in the last five years. What we want from the government is not crop compensation but water to save ourselves ", said 50 year old farmer Ramaswamy from Kittadakoppe village.
He said they are no longer landlords but hapless people with no source of income. Whatever they saved in the past has been spent on buying seeds and manure. But they have been losing crops for three years due to failure of the monsoon.
Now they have no choice but to leave villages and go to big cities to work as daily wagers, said Krishnappa who owns two acre land near Mookanayakanahalli village. Nagaraj, another farmer from Baagur village said crops like Ragi, jowar and pulses have suffered a lot due to failure of rain.
The storage at Yagachi Dam in Belur taluk of Hassan district is very low due to 47 per cent deficit rainfall. The present storage is reserved for drinking water.
