KARIMNAGAR: Chief Minister K. Chandraskhar Rao, who will be on a brief tour of the district after laying the foundation stone for the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP), on Monday, will be able to see at first hand the drought conditions currently prevailing and the severe crisis that has befallen the farming community, with rainfall so scanty.
Scores of farmers have ended their lives, depressed over unpaid debts, after registering losses in farming: 27 committed suicide between January 1 and March 31. As many as 134 farmers resorted to the drastic step in 2015. Earlier, mounting debts drove 61 farmers in 2014, as per the District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB).
The district recorded 650 mm of rainfall as against the normal 921 mm, indicating a deficit of 30 per cent of rainfall this year so far. Consequently, the area under cultivation has also reduced drastically.Various crops are being raised on 1.10 lakh hectares as against the usual area of 2.37 lakh hectares, suggesting a decline of over 50 per cent of area where crops are growing.
Standing crops, raised in 53, 965 hectares, withered in 2015, these losses amounting to Rs 36.92 crore. A total 19 mandals have been declared as drought-hit, with the number likely to go up. But the officials concerned have yet to take up assessment of the damaged crops, having pinned many hopes on the TRS government.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has visited the district eight times in the past either in the monsoon or winter, but this is the first time that he is going to be seeing a near famine situation.
