Vijayawada: The rainfall caused by the southwest monsoon in recent days has not caused any major damage to crops in Andhra Pradesh while it helped major reservoirs fill.
According to planning department data, AP received a rainfall of 424.8mm against the normal rainfall of 405.3mm with a deviation of 4.8 per cent from June 1 to Aug. 31. Out of 670 mandals, 73 received large excess rainfall, 149 excess, 343 normal, 104 deficient and one mandal reported large deficient rainfall.
District like Guntur, Chittoor, Kadapa and Anantapur received excess rainfall followed by Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Prakasam and Kurnool districts received normal rainfall while Nellore reported deficient rainfall.
AP received a total average rainfall of 7.5mm on Tuesday with Srikakulam district receiving the highest of 20.5mm followed by Vizianagaram 20.4mm, East Godavari 16.2mm, West Godavari 15mm, Visakhapatnam 10.8mm, Guntur 9.9mm while the remaining districts received less than five mm.
With regard to agriculture for kharif 2021-22, the actual sown area is 25.52 lakh hectares against a normal sown area of 29.02 lakh hectares, covering 88 per cent of normal sowing area as on Aug. 25.
Agriculture authorities maintain that there was no report of crop damage by way of inundation of fields due to the rainfall in the last few days. However, there are reports of rainwater inundating fields in several districts. Unless the crop damage is to the extent of 33 per cent, such damage will not be taken for consideration for providing input subsidy to the affected farmers.
Meanwhile, water resources authorities maintain that the rainfall in the last few days helped in the filling of several major, medium and other reservoirs. Out of a gross capacity at FRL of 982.35tmcft of water, AP has a current storage of 760.58tmcft (77.42 per cent) against last year’s storage of 762.70tmcft (77.64 per cent) as on Tuesday.
On the other hand, the overflowing Kondaveeti rivulet inundated agriculture fields and low-lying areas in parts of Mangalagiri and villages like Pedaparimi, Neerukonda, Ainavolu, Kuragallu villages of Amaravati Capital Region, affecting the vehicular traffic between Kuragallu-Neerkonda-Ainavolu.
This forced the water resources authorities to pump out water from the rivulet into the Krishna river. Several low-lying areas in Vijayawada and other villages in Krishna district were flooded. Sattenapalli, Macherla, Gurazala and other areas of Guntur district were also marooned disrupting vehicular traffic.
Water resources engineer-in-chief Narayana Reddy said, “We have not received any report of major breaches to tanks due to the rainfall except for some small streams witnessing floods inundating local low-lying areas and disrupting vehicular traffic in some regions. The rainfall is helping fill up reservoirs.”
