YS Jagan reviews dry spell, calls for awareness on alternative crops

AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has asked the officials to focus on e-cropping registrations while maintaining enough stocks of cattle fodder in view of the prolonged dry spell in the State.

At a review meeting on the dry spell and the contingency plans to be implemented in the State held at his camp office, Tadepalli on Friday, the Chief Minister said "E-crop data is very important for extending financial support to the farmers and directed them to begin the registrations and collect cattle data from all village secretariats to make preparations to keep enough stocks of fodder."

YS Jagan suggested officials arrange meetings of farmers’ advisory councils immediately under the aegis of District Collectors to discuss contingency plans and create awareness among farmers about alternate crops in view of the dry spell. He also asked the officials to introduce the APMSP Bill in the next Assembly elections to ensure that the farmers get MSP for their produce and RBKs play a key role.

During the meeting, the officials informed the Chief Minister that they were ready to distribute around 7,005 metric tons of cattle fodder seeds and around 74,023 metric tons of TMR was also ready. Regarding the shortfall of rain in the State, the officials said that the State had experienced a reduced rainfall of 314.6 mm against the usual 419.6 mm between June and August, making it short by 25 per cent.

Several districts, including Konaseema, Kakinada, SPS Nellore, West Godavari, NTR, Tirupati, Palnadu, Prakasam, Anantapur, Sri Satya Sai, Annamayys, YSR, Kurnool and Nandyal districts had experienced lesser rainfall and in some of these districts, the adverse effect of short rainfall would be less as they had other irrigation sources. Out of the total capacity of 1174.58 TMC capacity of all major, medium and minor reservoirs in the State, their present capacity stood at 507.88 TMCs, the officials said.

"Enough water has been released in advance to meet the irrigational needs of the Krishna delta and presently, the needs of Godavari delta are being met. While there is no scarcity of water to meet irrigation needs under Vamsadhara and Totapally reservoirs, the requirements are almost being met under the ayacuts of Velugodu, Gandikota, Chitravati, Brahma Sagar, Mylavaram and Gorukallu reservoirs," the officials said.

Officials told the Chief Minister that problems were being faced with supplying water to the ayacuts of KC Canal and the Right Canal of Nagarjuna Sagar project while there were enough stocks of water in Somasila and Kandaleru reservoirs to meet the needs of irrigation in Nellore district as crops were being cultivated rather late there. Steps were being taken to fill Yeleru reservoir, they said.

Regarding power generation in the State, officials informed the Chief Minister that the demand for electricity went up by 18 per cent from the power grid compared to last year due to a prolonged dry spell and every day 44.25 million units were being purchased daily, spending an amount of Rs. 2,935 crore between March and August, the officials and added that there was a heavy demand of 231 Gigawatts across the nation.

After going through the data provided by the officials, YS Jagan said that despite the adverse power situation across the nation, the State Government had spent Rs 501 crore, Rs 493 crore, Rs 430 crore, Rs 346.28crore, Rs 197.57crore and Rs 966.09crore in March, April, May, June, July and August respectively and paid a higher price of Rs 7.52 per unit to maintain enough power supply to the people and avoid inconvenience.

Officials said that around 3.3 lakh new connections were given to farmers in the last 50 months while the wind and thermal power generation had dropped considerably this year due to adverse weather conditions and lack of quality coal, respectively. Ministers Kakani Govardhan Reddy, Ambati Rambabu, Dr S Appala Raju, Chief Secretary Dr KS Jawahar Reddy and other higher officials were also present.