As water levels dip, farmers in Kanchi give up paddy cultivation

Sources said there are totally 1,40,000 hectares of farmland in Kancheepuram district.Of this, more than 1 lakh hectares of land is traditionally used for cultivating paddy, especially in the villages of Uthiramerur, Maduranthagam and Cheyyur.

The farmers earlier used the water available in the lakes to water their fields. However, this year they could not utilise the lake water as there is a shortage in the lakes in the district. Even the Maduranthagam lake, which is the biggest in the region, is filled up only up to 11 feet of its 23.9 feet capacity.

Sources said that there are totally 909 lakes in the district of which 800 are used for farming.

Apparently, all the 800 lakes are having less amount of water due to the poor Northeast monsoon.

“Since there is not enough water available, the farmers have decided to cultivate dals, pulses and groundnuts instead of paddy,” said R Ramaswamy, a farmer from Maduranthagam. He added that the government should look into the issue and provide necessary help for them to tide over the crisis.

When contacted, Gold Premavathy, Joint Director of the Kancheepuram Agricultural Department, said, “Since we had very less amount of monsoon rainfall in 2018, the lakes were not even filled to 50 per cent if their total storage. In the wake of this, we have advised the farmers to cultivate pulses and groundnuts since they do not require a large quantity of water. Hope at least next year we will get enough monsoon rain,” she said.