PONDA: When the going gets tough, farmers of Talpona in Shiroda get going. At least 450 farmers at Talpona, Shiroda, are a desperate lot. A fragile bandhara that they recently spent five days and nights repairing after borrowing Rs 1.5 lakh, has weakened at several other places owing to high tides, incessant rain, and the release of water from the Salaulim Dam, threatening to expose their paddy saplings to saline water. This has brought haunting memories of the tragedy they witnessed in 2020 when the traditional water barrier gave way.
Faced with the threat of losing their crops on one hand, there is pressure on them to repay the loan they took from local villagers.
On the other, the helpless farmers now seek urgent government support, necessary succour that has kept eluding them so far.
And yet they are not giving up. At the very least they have managed to partially repair the bandhara that gave way and hold on somehow. And other villagers have pitched in with whatever money they had.
A local farmer Milind Mamlekar said after getting financial help from locals they repaired the bandhara, which was breached five days ago. What they did not get is government compensation and an assured supply of material to strengthen the bandhara from the WRD Minister Subhash Shirodkar.
The farmers pointed out that in 2021 the check dam also breached and they had to spend Rs 7 lakh on repairs. The Soil Conservator officer inspected the work and assured to provide Rs 3.5 lakh as compensation (50 per cent of the money spent by them on repairs). However, they haven’t received this money yet.
Due to this, the farmers felt that the chances of getting compensated for Rs 1.5 lakh spent to repair the structure this time are very low.
But they hope that if government pays them Rs 3.5 lakh approved in 2021, it would help them to repay the loan taken by them to repair the structure.
According to the farmers, an officer of the Soil Conservation Division of the Directorate of Agriculture had inspected the site and claimed that he had taken measures to protect the paddy fields.
But the ground reality showed no signs of protected paddy fields. The breached bandhara had led to the inundation of the paddy fields of around 450 farmers who had sowed the paddy saplings for this Kharif season.
The farmers demanded urgent relief from the government not only in the form of releasing the pending compensation, but also further assistance to enable them to undertake repairs of the weakened bandhara before it collapses and causes further damage.
But going by the reaction of officials, getting compensation is easier said than done.
When contacted, a Soil Conservation official said he would find out whether there are any files in his office related to pending compensation of Rs 3.5 lakh.
Ponda Mamlatdar Vinod Dalal said, “My officers have conducted a site inspection of the breached bandhara at Talpona, Shiroda and the report on it has been sent to Soil Conservation Division. They have to study the report and finalise the cost of repairs.”
An official from the Zonal Agriculture Office (ZAO) in Ponda said, “In case of crop damage, the farmers should file applications so that we can compensate them. The repair work on bandhara is either undertaken by Soil Conservation Office or by WRD.”
But the time files move, and inspection reports are studied, this year’s crop could have been destroyed. So the brave rural soldiers of Shiroda took matters into their own hands with the rest of the community pitching in their hard-earned money to protect not just fields but their future.
