Farmers feel heat as rains play truant in Telangana

Vanakalam cultivation area at just 1/3rd of targeted 15 mn acres

Hyderabad: Though the State had set an ambitious target for the 2024-25 Kharif season, aiming to cover 15.19 million acres, the actual progress by the end of the first half of July is only one third of what was expected.

The first two months of the Vanakalam (Kharif) season were considered to be the most advantageous for farm operations and farmers tried to seize the opportunity to sow their precious seeds. But they were upset by the dry spells experienced in June. The net area that was sown as on Sunday was only 54,61,238 acres, which accounts for a little over one third of the targeted area for the season. The sowings covered mainly the rainfed pockets so far.

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Even as the State had more or less good rainfall of 244 mmm as against the normal of 221 mm in June and the first half of July so far, it was quite uneven. As many as 126 of the revenue mandals had a deficit rainfall and two of them being classified as large deficit. In all, 75 mandals received rainfall that is classified as large excess and 144 as excess while 267 mandals received normal rainfall. The districts of Mancherial, Kamareddy and Medak were yet to receive good rains for the farm operations to take off in a big way.

As a result, the paddy transplantation was completed so far in only 4.14 lakh acres of area as against the normal of 57.18 lakh acres. The area under Vanakalam paddy was 65.54 lakh acres in 2023-24, 64.54 in 2022-23, and 62.13 lakh acre in 2021-22.

The area covered under major millets was only 2.81 lakh acres as against the normal of 6.82 lakh acres. Area covered under pulses was only 3.57 lakh acres as against the normal of 8.62 lakh acres. Cotton seed was sown in over 36.88 lakh acres with the normal being 50.48 lakh acres.

Several factors could be contributing to this shortfall in the sowing targets, according to officials. Issues with the availability of the sought after seed and fertilizers shortages impacted the sowing activity in early June despite the pre-monsoon showers. A major factor that impacted sowing was the fact that none of the major irrigation projects in the State received any significant inflows for want of rains in the catchment of the rivers traversing through the State.

The cumulative inflows were almost zero in the projects such as Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar, SRSP, Nizam Sagar and Sripada Yellampalli. So is the case with almost all the medium irrigation projects.

The paddy transplantation is expected to gain momentum under both the Godavari basin and the Krishna basin projects once the project-wise irrigation schedules are finalised.