Jamnagar District News Samachar Gujarat India

Further delay in rains harmful for crops: Irrigation dept.

Rains have given the state a miss in August as well and a further delay will lead to damage to crops. Farmers are now resorting to drawing water not only form check dams but also from main irrigation dams with nearly 96 percent sowing completed.

Irrigation department officials said that 5461 million cubic feet (MCFT) of water has been released from dams since July 30. According to data there was 238518.21 MCFT of water on July 30, but since August 19, water in the dams has reduced to 233056.75 MCFT, a fall of 5461 MCFT. They added that this decrease was only from the major irrigation dams as data for check dams was not available.

Any further delay in rains will definitely affect ground nut and cotton crops, adding that, if there was a good spell in the next couple of days it would ensure a bumper crop.

CA Patel, deputy director, irrigation says, "There is no fear of crop failure, however, further delay of monsoon will definitely deteriorate the quality of crop."

According to data available cotton has the highest sowing area of 25.84 lakh hectares. A senior officer said maximum sowing was done in Surendranagar district with 7.12 lakh hectares.

Other areas where major sowing was done included Rajkot (7.07 lakh ha), Jamnagar (6.07 lakh ha), Amreli (5.51 lakh ha) and Bhavnagar (5.44 lakh ha) and Banaskantha (5.34 lakh ha). Of the 25 districts, there were three districts where sowing was below 1 lakh hectares. In Ahmedabad district, the sowing was around 4.34 lakh hectares. Officials said Saurashtra and Kutch account for over 55 per cent of total sowing in the state.