Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh government’s move to use rain guns to create artificial rain in drought-hit areas for protecting existing crop, digging farm ponds and other scientific methods to fight drought has earned kudos from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On Sunday, during his radio programme Mann Ki Baat, Mr Modi praised both Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat for using technology to overcome drought.
“Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have used technology very well to mitigate drought. Jan Bhagidari is also vital,” Mr Modi said. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu met Mr Modi on May 17 and made a presentation on the measures AP government has been employing to mitigate the impact of drought.
Naidu explains use of rain guns
Mr Naidu explained about rain guns, farm ponds and water harvesting techniques. AP has also been using technology to monitor surface and groundwater level.
Mr Naidu, in his presentation to Mr Modi, has explained how rain guns are used. “Each rain gun loaded at a time can irrigate two acres of land. The rain gun is then moved from one place to other. Farm ponds under Panta Sanjeevani scheme were dug up for every ten acres,” said AP government’s communication adviser Parakala Prabhakar.
To prevent percolation of water from the ponds polythene covers are used. Likewise, water harvesting measures and micro irrigation techniques and using computer technology to track every drop of surface water and groundwater were also explained, he said.
In 2014 and 2015, out of 13 districts except East, West Godavari and Visakhapatnam remaining 10 districts were drought affected and the area was spread over 359 mandals.
In 2015 Rabi season, officials used 687 rain guns and protected 9,100 acres of crop. In 2016-17 officials have said that they will use around 15,000 rain guns and on any given day crop in one lakh acres can be protected from permanent withering.
In 2015-16 around 16,618 farm ponds were dug and this year it has been decided to dig 6.05 lakh farm ponds, which will meet water needs of three lakh hectares of land. Around 4.5 lakh farmers will be benefited. It is being estimated that around 2.75 tmc of water may be stored in these farm ponds.
