Withering crops, distressed farmers greet the 'son of the soil'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHOWDAPUR CROSS (GULBARGA Dt.) JULY 28. Barren agriculture fields, dried up borewells and farmers with distress writ large on their faces welcomed the former Prime Minister, Mr. H.D.Deve Gowda, on his whistle-stop tour of the drought-hit areas in the perennially drought-prone Gulbarga District today.

Mr. Gowda, who mingled freely with the farmers in Chowdapur village and Afsalpur before continuing his tour of the drought- hit areas in Bijapur District, said "the situation is distressing." Even in the lands where the farmers had taken up sowing in the hope of getting rainfall in time, the germinated crop was withering, and the farmers had no "escape" from one of the harshest droughts seen so far.

The former Prime Minister skipped the Janata Dal (S) workers' meeting in Gulbarga city to spend more time visiting as many villages as possible. He got down from his vehicle in three places and walked over the barren lands to test the moisture content of the soil. He also enquired with people if water was available in the borewells used for irrigation.

Farmers such as Mr. Sharanabasappa Lingashetty of Chowdapur village told Mr. Gowda that the drought this year was unprecedented, and the worst affected were the cattle which were deprived of green fodder and drinking water as all the water sources, including tanks and ponds, had dried up.

Mr. Lakshman, who owned five acres of land in Chowdapur village, told Mr. Gowda that the water in his borewell had diminished, and what was available was not sufficient to irrigate the crops. The sugarcane crop was drying.

Mr. Gowda brushed aside the security cover around him and gave a patient hearing to the farmers and remarked: "I am neither a Prime Minister nor a Chief Minister now; I have come here to get a feel of the drought situation and to learn the problems faced by the farmers, and take them up with the Government."

Mr. Gowda said what he had seen during his two-day tour of the fields in Bidar and Gulbarga districts was distressing. He said the depletion of the groundwater level in the drought-hit areas was a warning that even the lands covered by tubewell irrigation would be not safe from drought.

At Gobbur (Khurd) on the Gulbarga-Afsalpur Road, Mr. Gowda visited a sugarcane field which had started drying up due to lack of water. Although no farmer was available on the spot, the accompanying Revenue Department officials told him that the borewell in the field had dried up and the crop had started withering for want of water. Mr. Gowda pulled a few plants out of the soil to check the presence of moisture in them.

Mr. Gowda said that he wanted to personally visit the affected districts before making a statement on the difficult situation, and added: "I do not want to jump to any hasty conclusion and politicise the drought situation." At the same time, the Janata Dal (S) would not hesitate to launch an agitation against the Government if there was any complacency in taking up the relief work, he added.

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