When they unbelievably saw with brimming joy the 11 overflowing dams of Tirunelveli district just ten months ago, farmers believed that they would be blessed with yet another bumper ‘kar’ paddy as in the case of ‘pisanam.’

Their belief got further strengthened when more than 2,400 of the 2,518 irrigation tanks were then overflowing.

All the joy has evaporated now as farmers are agonisingly staring at withering paddy as the southwest monsoon has let them down. While all the 11 dams have almost reached ‘dead storage,’ 1,634 systemised and rainfed tanks are now bone dry.

Since the district recorded a rainfall of 952.95 mm against the average of 485 mm in October-December last year during the northeast monsoon, farmers reaped a bumper harvest in the ‘pisanam’ season and believed that even an average southwest monsoon would guarantee a decent yield in the ‘kar’ paddy season.

Contrary to their belief, the southwest monsoon dashed all their hopes this year. Consequently, the district received only 225 mm rainfall against the actual rainfall of 348.60 mm between January and September 15, which has seriously affected ‘kar’ paddy.

“Though we had set a target of 20,000 hectares for ‘kar’ paddy, farmers could take up cultivation only on 17,300 hectares owing to water scarcity. And their worst fears became true when paddy cultivated on over 800 hectares withered. Now a joint survey by revenue and agriculture department officials is on to assess the crop loss,” said Kanagaraj, Joint Director of Agriculture.

Agriculture officials, based on monsoon predictions, have encouraged farmers to go for pre-monsoon sowing of black gram and maize in the dry regions. Farmers have started their work on raising rainfed crops as they are not prepared to repose their faith on paddy.

Builder P. Sivamani, a resident of KTC Nagar in Palayamkottai, said groundwater table in their area, which got recharged in an unprecedented fashion last year, had not reached the alarming level as the nearby tank had water till a few weeks ago. “Among the 2,500 houses in the area, deep borewells in more than 1,500 houses were literally dry before the northeast monsoon. However, the active precipitation dramatically revived the groundwater table and it got recharged till a few weeks ago with water stagnating in the nearby tank despite hot summer. If the onset of northeast monsoon gets delayed further, the groundwater table may go down,” Mr. Sivamani said.

Following is the water level in Tirunelveli dams (in feet, maximum capacity in brackets) on Tuesday: Papanasam 19.25 (143), Servalar 49.21 (156), Manimuthar 38.82 (118), Gadana 25 (85), Ramanadhi 25 (84), Karuppanadhi 24.77 (72), Gundar 16.75 (36.10), Adavinainar 17 (142), Vadakku Pachchaiyar 2 (67), Kodumudiyar 2 (57) and Nambiyar 9.18 (25).

Source - http://www.thehindu.com