Water for rabi crops assured

Rajahmundry: Expressing concern over the way the farmers suffered colossal loss of crops due to a series of cyclonic storms including Phailin, Helen and Lehar, Minister for Social Welfare and roads and buildings Pithani Satyanarayana assured to ensure supply of adequate water to the farmers to help them raise crops, mainly paddy during rabi season in West Godavari.

Taking part in the Irrigation Advisory Board meeting at Eluru on Friday, the minister announced that as the public representatives and farmers expressed their intention to ensure supply of water for raising second crop in the district, the meeting had resolved to do so.

The minister said that the meeting had resolved to close the canals in western delta for the period March 31 to July 31, 2014 and asked the farmers to take up cultivation of crops for rabi before the closure of canals. He said that works related to canals and drains would be taken up during the closure of canals and called upon the farmers to get ready for raising crops mainly paddy for kharif season soon after the reopening of canals after carrying out maintenance works.

The minister stated that Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy was paying more attention to provide input subsidy to the farmers who lost their crops in the storms and added that the government was making all efforts to ensure release of crop insurance amount to the affected farmers to help them recoup from the loss and take up cultivation of crops.

Collector Siddarth Jain said that farmers were losing crops under the influence of natural calamities and felt the need to take up modernisation of Godavari delta as a remedy to get rid of such problem. He opined that if the farmers could harvest their crops by the end of October, they could save their crops as the storms come up only during November in a year.

Underlining the importance of taking up long term plan for modernisation of Godavari delta, the Collector said that the irrigation authorities had already cautioned the contractors that if they failed to execute their works expeditiously, their bank guarantees would be encashed and their firms would be blacklisted. He said that the contractors were asked to take up canals works along with drains also.