Water projects in district dry, farmers worried about rabi crops

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The district has received less than average rainfall this year, and most of the water projects in the district are dry. The irrigation department is gating the dams to ensure that the little water available will be of some benefit for irrigation during the Rabi season, but farmers are worried about what will happen to their crops due to lack of water.

Kolhapuri type (KT) weirs are used to block the water flowing into the water projects from mid-October onwards, but this year there is no water in the projects and the gates are proving of no use. There are 585 KT weirs in nine tehsils of the district, but sometimes the gates are washed away in heavy rains or stolen. As a result, water in the dams has been flowing away for many years due to lack of gates.

At present, approximately 18,000 gates are required for 585 dams, and about 15,000 gates are available with the irrigation department. A tender process was carried out to construct and install the remaining 2,700 new gates, but many of the gates have not yet been cast.

According to senior sources, this year due to heavy rainfall in Sillod and Soygaon tehsils, there is little water in the dams in those areas. The dams there have been gated to block the water, but due to low rainfall in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar tehsil, dams are dry. Only 15 to 20 percent of the dams in the district have little water.