Telangana farmers wait for skies to open up for help for Kharif

Though officials have been exuding confident over prospects of a normal Kharif this year with a marginal variation in net area under different crops, the sowings are still less than one third of normal

Hyderabad: As part of its stock-taking mission, the State government is deploying the Agriculture Department machinery on the field from Monday for an accurate assessment of the progress in the Kharif operations that were impacted considerably by the deficient rainfall in the first phase of the season.

Though officials have been exuding confident over prospects of a normal Kharif this year with a marginal variation in net area under different crops, the sowings are still less than one third of normal.

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The Kharif operations started picking up only in the first week of July, with almost all the districts barring a few receiving normal rainfall for the week. The area sown so far in the season has been put at little over 31 lakh acres as against the season’s normal of 124.28 lakh acres. Paddy farmers have been busy raising nurseries under all the major and medium irrigation projects. A majority of them are getting ready for transplantation in anticipation of water at least by the month end. Irrigation authorities are expected to soon announce the schedule for releasing water to an ayacut of over 18 lakh acres under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

Unless the skies open up soon, paddy transplantation is likely to be delayed under other major irrigation projects such as Nagarjuna Sagar project and Srisailam as they are yet to receive the first inflows for year. Since the monsoons are active over the region, they are hopeful of normal rainfall at least from the weekend. Area covered so far under paddy crop in the State is hardly three to four percent of the season’s normal of 49.86 lakh acres.

All the major paddy producing districts such as Nalgonda and Suryapet are still waiting for the irrigation schedule to be finalized for the ayacut of the Nagarjuna Sagar Left canal. Kharif operations gained momentum mainly in the rain-fed areas.

As on July 5, an extent of 1.30 lakh acres was covered under paddy as against the normal of 49.86 lakh acres (2.8 %). Some 24.86 lakh acres were covered under paddy as against the season’s normal of 56.59 lakh acres (49.15 %). Area covered under soyabean was 2.23 lakh acres as against the normal of 4.13 lakh acres (54%). Some 87,179 acres was under maize and 1,81,087 acres under red gram so far.