Govt Told to Make No Groundwater for Paddy a Rule This Year

Hyderabad:Even as surface irrigation has more or less been ruled out during the ongoing kharif season, and amid a push by the government to encourage farmers to shift to irrigated dry crops, a serious warning has been issued against the use of groundwater for raising paddy this season in Telangana.

Dr Danda Raji Reddy, the vice-chancellor of Sri Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University, on Saturday called on the state government to tell farmers not to raise paddy on land irrigated with groundwater. “This message must be sent,” Dr Raji Reddy said at the ‘El Nino: From Pacific warming to Telangana preparedness’ seminar organised by the state planning department at Ravindra Bharati.

““It is critical to discourage paddy cultivation. This must be a unanimous decision. More importantly, paddy should definitely not be cultivated using borewell water. This message must be conveyed,” Dr Raji Reddy said.

It may be recalled that during recent high-level reviews by the government, the state groundwater management authorities had warned that the water-table levels were set to fall with little prospect of surface recharge on account of poor rains.

According to established agricultural norms, one acre of paddy requires between 12 lakh and 15 lakh litres of water over the crop cycle, a tall order when groundwater reserves face the prospect of little or no recharge, as is expected to be the case this monsoon.

Incidentally, even as the groundwater department has sounded a cautionary note about the emerging situation, and with yet another warning coming from a senior academic on why paddy should be completely discouraged, the state government which said only seven varieties of fine rice will be eligible for the ₹500-per-quintal bonus this kharif season, is yet to update its advisory on cultivation of these rice varieties.

It was on June 17, well after the India Meteorological Department issued its long-range forecast for a poor monsoon, that the government announced the list of seven rice varieties identified as eligible for the bonus. Though the agriculture department has been urging farmers to opt for irrigated dry crops in view of the poor monsoon rains, or if paddy cultivation is unavoidable, to opt for short-duration varieties, farmers in several districts, till the second week of this month, planted paddy on 4.22 lakh acres. Though this is far less than the normal kharif paddy acreage of 65.96 lakh acres during kharif, even the planted extent, with transplanting from nurseries expected to pick up a little with the ongoing rain spells across the state, groundwater use for cultivating paddy is now emerging as a matter of serious concern in Telangana as evidenced by the horticulture university vice-chancellor’s warning.

Short duration paddy? Barely so…

Short duration for rice - 90-120 days

Rice varieties that will get bonus this kharif

Variety – Crop duration

BPT-5204 Sambamasuri – 130-145 days

Jai Sriram - 135-145 days

WGL-44 Siddhi - 140-145 days

KNM-7715 – 130-140 days

HMT Sona – 120-135 days

RSR-15048 Telangana Sona - 120-125 days

KSM-1638 Kunaram Sannalu - 120-125 days