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Bardhaman
Dot Com News Bureau
Burdwan, 10 Aug 04 :
The cultivation of paddy, the main rice grain at Burdwan, the
main grower of the crop in the state is most likely to be hit
badly due to lack of normal rainfall in the district &
adjoining areas. The lack of supply of water from DVC have added
to the disaster. The farmers of the district have to rely on
private sub-mersible pumps for cultivation, but the up-shooting
price of diesel used to power the sub-mersible pumps have made
almost impossible to use it.
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District agricultural department informed that, this season where
the target was to cultivate paddy at 4,40,000 hectors, the actual
cultivated land till date is only 1,98,000 hectors. The officials
of the department expressed their doubt if the rest of the land
can be cultivated without the `support of the monsoon or DVC
supply'. "45% of the land in the district have already been
cultivated" informed an official of the agricultural
department. He also added, "the rest can be cultivated if the
monsoon
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downpour or the DVC supply increases." The executive
engineer of the DVC, Ashok Bhattacharya told to bardhaman.com,
"as per the DVC's stock of water, we can meet 2 day's demand
of the district. We cannot supply water after that if rainfall in
Jharkhand plateau including the Maithon & Pancyat area doesn't
increase." He also informed that, the corporation have
released 17,000 cu. sec. of water about four day's back but
couldn't continue with it due to `lack of rainfall'. In normal
season, the DVC releases about 16,000 cu. sec. water each day to
support the irrigation system of the district. The DVC barrage at
the Durgapur is running short of `stacked water' informed the DVC
engineer. He said, "we have to maintain a level of 60,000
acre ft. of stacked water at the barrage for functioning of the
hydro-power system & supply of drinking water to the Durgapur
industrial area."
As per as the government reports, till date the monsoon have
showered 67% less rainfall in the district and this have resulted
in disaster in Raina, Khandagosh, Burdwan sadar, Katwa, Kalna
& other areas in the district. The farmers who have managed to
cultivate their fields are worried how can they maintain &
grow the crop in absence of water. Suresh Hembram, secretary
of Burdwan Zila Parishad's agriculture & irrigation committee, said to bardhaman.com,
"lack of rainfall & irrigation supply have ran disaster
for the main crop of the district. According to our primary
assumptions we thought that the irrigation supply can manage paddy
cultivation at 70% of the district's cultivated land, but
eventually the lack of DVC supply have proved that assumption to
be false."
Overall the state agricultural department confessed that they
doubt that over 75,250 hectors of land will remain barren this
season due to lack of water. This have resulted a huge disaster of
the agricultural system of the highest paddy growing district in
the state.
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