Kudne’s degraded lifelines drown ryots in CM’s constituency into misery

Fields in the village facing a death knell due to bad water management; degraded water sources and sluice gates render the land completely useless for agricultural purposes
Kudne’s degraded lifelines drown ryots in CM’s constituency into misery
Published on

Team Herald

SANKHALI: Fields in the agriculture-dominated village of Kudne are facing a death knell due to bad water management. The water sources and the sluice gates that were lifelines for the fields in the village have degraded and completely mismanaged rendering the land completely useless for the agricultural purposes.

Farmers gathered in Kudne village on Thursday to address the issues that are being faced by the village farmers. A whopping 180 acres of agricultural land, which used to produce 3 to 4,000 quintal of rice, is now completely fallow.

Kudne village, which once was the rice bowl village, is now struggling to retain its agricultural fields. Farmers have alleged that the main reason for the degradation is the badly built sluice gate and water system.

In their memorandum to the Chief Minister and their local MLA Pramod Sawant, the ryots informed that over 50 to 60 farmers were engaged in paddy cultivation here.

“The fields have been rendered fallow since 2012 due to continuous entry of saline water during high tide from faulty design and installation of fibre doors/plates sluice gate by sub Div IV, Div 1 WRD Bicholim. The fibre doors and plates used for the sluice gate are not suitable as the area gets heavily flooded during monsoon and during high tide,” informed Suresh Malik, a farmer.

The fibre doors/plates sluice gate slip down during flooding resulting in incursion of saline water in the field throughout the year. Due to water logging experienced in the last several years, the fields have remained fallow resulting in wild grass growth and surrounding garden crops specially coconut, banana, arecanut, vegetables. Pulses cultivation is also affected.

The field is supposed to be dry during April and May after harvesting of Rabi paddy crop. So also a reservoir called ‘Kolam’ which stores excess water entering from a closed sluice gate during high tide is heavily silted. This reservoir helps to control saline water entering in planted paddy crop.

Another farmer Nagesh Malik said, “We request Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who is also our MLA to direct the Water Resources Department (WRD) to install suitable sluice gate and Goa Mineral Foundation to desilt the said ‘Kolam’, which will provide a permanent solution. This will enable the large tracts of land to be brought under cultivation, thereby making the village ‘Atmanirbhar’ and the villagers ‘Swayampurna’ as far as rice, vegetables and pulses are concerned.”

The farmers have yet again reminded the Chief Minister to help them cultivate their fields during the Rabi season next year.

Herald Goa
www.heraldgoa.in