Watch: Farmer’s woes continue with ‘bunga’ in NSP canal bed forcing officials to stop water release

The repairs carried out to close a breach that occurred in the NSP left canal yielded no result as a 'bunga' (a large hole) was developed on the canal bed on Saturday.

Khammam: There seems to be no end to the woes of farmers in NSP ayacut in the district. The repairs carried out to close a breach that occurred in the NSP left canal yielded no result as a ‘bunga’ (a large hole) was developed on the canal bed on Saturday.

It might be noted that the canal suffered a massive breach due to heavy rains and flash floods on August 31 and September 1. There was an inordinate delay in repairing the canal as well as old Palair canal even as Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy visited the site one week ago and directed the irrigation officials to expedite the works. Delay in the works had upset the paddy farmers, whose fields dried up and developed cracks due to lack of irrigation water supply for over a fortnight period. Farmers and farmers associations staged protests demanding to complete repairs at the earliest.

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On Friday, District Collector Muzammil Khan visited the work site and told the officials to complete the works by night. The breached part of the canal was filled with soil and plastic sheets used in canal lining to prevent water seepage and protect the canal. However, when officials started releasing water on Saturday afternoon, water started seeping through a depression on the canal bed forcing the officials to stop water flow into the canal to prevent further damage to the canal.

Speaking to Telangana Today, CPI Rythu Sangham state president B Hemanth Rao suspected poor quality works as the reason for the bunga occurring in the canal bed. He along with its leaders D Ramesh and K Govinda Rao visited the canal on the day. Instead of laying a cement slab on the canal bed, officials used only soil to cover the breach and it resulted in the seepage. For nearly one week, no one cared about repairing the breached canal. The State government and irrigation officials should have acted swiftly in carrying out the repairs so that there would be sufficient time to execute works in an efficient manner, he noted.

Hemanth Rao informed that he has spoken to irrigation chief engineer Vidyasagar, who told him that works would be carried out on Sunday to fill the bunga on the canal bed to prevent seepage and to release water. He noted that there was a need to strengthen the canal bund, which was weak at many places. It was supposed to release 6000 cusecs of water from the canal from Palair balancing reservoir but only 4000 cusecs being released due to weak bund. As a result tail end fields are not receiving sufficient water, he added.