Truant monsoon gives sleepless nights to farmers

SANGAREDDY: Truant monsoon is giving sleepless nights to the farmers in Medak district. After the initial monsoon showers at various places in the first week of June raised new hopes among the farmers, many of them went for sowing. However, due to the continuing dry spell since then they are now worried whether the seeds would germinate at all.Encouraged by the bumper crop last year, the farmers in the district started agricultural operations quite early this season. By May end they tilled the land and sowed green gram and black gram after the first rain in the first week. In the absence of any rain thereafter they are forced to water the fields by fetching water from long distances in pots but still they are not really hopeful of saving the crop.In the absence of any water project in the district, the farmers largely are dependent on the monsoon. Though 40,000 acres in the district are catered to by the Singur project, they are not likely to get water from the project for the current kharif season. Of the 4.2 lakh hectares of cultivable land in the district, farm operations have been started only in 5,000 hectares so far.Agricultural officials, however, have been assuring the farmers that there’s no need for panic as yet. Even in case of delayed monsoon, the farmers can always go for alternative crops like paddy, cotton and maize, they say.