How Sri Ram Sagar Project infuriates and relieves farmers

NIZAMABAD: Several farmers of Balkonda assembly constituency, living near the Sri Ram Sagar Project, have been urging the State government to provide a permanent solution for their issues regarding irrigation water supply.

There are around 28 villages in the region, located along the bank of the Kakatiya canal. Every year, farmers of these villages wait for the monsoon season with the hope that it rains enough to raise the level of the Sri Ram Sagar Project (SRSP) reservoir. This is because their water situation is a binary one - if the reservoir has enough water, they will get water and if it doesn’t, their farms will go dry. They have no year-round water supply and in the lean months, they are forced to depend on pumping groundwater.

For a long time, until a couple of years ago, the farmers solved this issue by illegally pumping water from the Kakatiya canal, which never ran dry due to leakages in the gates of the dam connected to it. These leaks helped them water their crops even when irrigation department officials hadn’t officially opened the gates. One could see thousands of pump sets lined along the canal, each connected to their owners’ lands with long pipes. However, the department saw what was happening and decided to repair the gates with rubber hosing to prevent more leakage. Now, the canal runs dry for most of the year.

This dependence on official decisions has not gone down well with the farming community. It may be recalled that only a couple of weeks ago, when the State was still waiting for rains, the entire region had erupted in anger against the SRSP management. Farmers’ organisations held protests and staged dharnas at the superintending engineer’s office. At one point, the government had to impose Section 144 to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control. The unrest died down only a week ago when the region got good rains.
Officials at the SRSP too agree with the idea that there needed to be a more permanent, and sustainable solution, to the water supply issues in the region. “The government should allocate water to the 28 villages situated next to the canal and arrange some irrigation scheme for them,” he said, requesting anonymity.

This is understandable because the project’s officials frequently find themselves in dangerous positions before angry mobs baying for their blood. On the political side of things too, some members of opposition parties have shown some interest in the issue. Recently, BJP MLA NVSS Prabhakar had met the farmers and assured them that he would raise the issue in the assembly.