Thanjavur: Even as the farmers in tail-end areas have been agitating demanding water for cultivation across the district, samba cultivation has begun in the upper reaches where canal water has already reached.
Farmers were seen ploughing, sowing, transplanting seedlings in Thanjavur, Soorakottai, Madigai and Orathanadu areas, with water reaching their areas through the Grand Anicut canal. While machine transplanting is going on in many places, farm labourers are being engaged for the work in other places.
Manickam, a farm labourer engaged in transplanting seedlings at Soorakottai near here, said on Wednesday that labourers are being paid Rs 150 per day for transplanting. “We come in the morning and transplant till noon. Later, we continue in the evening after 3 p.m.”
Farm women engaged in transplanting said they are beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But this year, they could not get much work under the scheme. “Water has come and we got this work,” they said. The labourers said that they got water through Kalyanavodai canal, a branch of the Grand Anicut canal.
According to agriculture department officials, transplantation has been completed on 4,800 hectares in the upper reaches irrigated by the Grand Anicut canal. However, cultivation has not yet started in the tail-end areas like Pattukottai, Peravurani and Sethubavachathiram - as water has not yet reached those areas.
Samba target this year is 1,05,000 hectares. Thaladi (taken up in kuruvai harvested areas) target is 30,000 hectares.
“We have adequate stocks of medium-term samba variety seeds. Farmers prefer CO-50 variety, which is a crop of 135 days duration. Other varieties raised are NLR, BPT, TKM-9, etc. We expect 5,000 hectares to come under direct sowing,” the officials added.
Farmers pin their hopes on samba, as they could not take up Kuruvai cultivation this year also in canal irrigated areas, as Mettur dam was opened on July 19. The routine date of opening of dam for kuruvai cultivation is June 12.
But the problem of water not reaching tail-end areas despite surplus this year, worries them.
