Farmer tries to save paddy nursery with water tankers in Sangareddy

When farmer Manne Lingaiah (65) lost hope of getting rain after an extended dry spell, he hired a water tanker by spending Rs.2,000 on each trip to save his paddy nursery.

Sangareddy: The first thing that farmers in Sangareddy district do these days as soon as they wake up is to look up at the sky. Even before they go to sleep, they strain their eyes checking the night sky for any clouds that could mean rains to save their crops.

When farmer Manne Lingaiah (65) lost hope of getting rain after an extended dry spell, he hired a water tanker by spending Rs.2,000 on each trip to save his paddy nursery. He engaged four tankers during the last four days, hoping that the area would get rain soon. Lingaiah, who holds 2.5 acres of land at Chowtakur mandal headquarters, had taken another 3 acres on lease from a farmer in the village. These three acres of land were part of Nayani Cheruvu’s ayacut located on the outskirts of Chowtakur. However, the Nayani Cheruvu, a minor irrigation tank having 70 acres of ayacut, has received no inflows this season.

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Since the Singur reservoir, built across River Manjeera, did not have enough water, irrigation authorities were not releasing water into minor irrigation tanks.

Farmer Gamini Jogiah’s nursery, located adjacent to Lingaiah’s field, has also started withering due to the prolonged dry spell. Speaking to Telangana Today, Lingaiah said he had hired the three acres of land by paying Rs 10,000 per acre besides spending an additional Rs 10,000 on tilling the land, seeds and labour to take up the nursery. The spending on water tankers was additional expense now. Since the nursery started drying up as the area witnessed no rains for the last 10 days, he is planning to engage tankers till August 30, hoping that the monsoon might get stronger by then.

The struggles of the farmers would end if the Singur reservoir got inflows from the upstream Manjeera, he said, recalling that he had got a bumper harvest of paddy during the last Vanakalam and Yasangi seasons as the Singur project had sufficient water.

Farmers in the village were forced to sow cotton seeds two to three times as they failed to sprout. Lingaiah went through the sowing process thrice which saw his spending on the crop shoot up threefold. However, the cotton crop did not get proper sprouting even then. Farmers across Sangareddy have the same story to narrate as Lingaiah with the district continuing to witness prolonged dry spells.