Tense atmosphere prevails at Jurala project as farmers demand water

Tension prevailed at the Jurala project in Jogulamba Gadwal district as police and officials guarded canal regulators after farmers released water themselves for irrigation. Farmers said crops were withering and demanded assured water supply to protect their paddy fields

Jogulamba Gadwal: A tense atmosphere prevailed at the Jurala project in the district on Sunday, with police, irrigation and revenue officials stationed at the Left and Right canals to prevent farmers from releasing water.

Irked by the officials’ apathy in releasing water, farmers thronged the project on Saturday evening and released water themselves from the head regulator into the Left Canal to protect their crops. However, officials immediately turned up at the project and closed the regulator.

---

Anticipating a similar incident on Sunday, a considerable police force was deployed at the project. Irrigation and revenue officials, too, were monitoring the situation since morning.

The current live capacity of the project is 5.1 TMC ft against its gross capacity of 8.81 TMC ft. A few farmers even accused officials of issuing false statements about the availability of water in the project. They said that releasing water for farming would not have any impact on drinking water supply.

Farmers, especially those cultivating paddy under the project ayacut, have been demanding that officials release water. However, citing El Niño and a lack of clearance from senior authorities, project officials were not releasing water.

Farmers had staged protests at the project for the last three days. They argued that their crops were withering due to inadequate water supply. They charged that despite repeated appeals to officials, their issues were not addressed.

Many small and marginal farmers complained that they had invested heavily in crop cultivation. They said the crops had been cultivated for the last three-and-a-half months and that they needed an assured water supply for another one-and-a-half months to protect them.

“If water is not supplied, the crops will dry up and we will have to suffer huge losses,” farmers said.