September rains pour blessings on farmers in Bundelkhand
KANPUR : Torrential rains in September though have led to flooding of major rivers and destruction in some parts, for the farmers of arid Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh it is nothing less than a divine blessing.
“It is like our prayers have been answered by the almighty. The Rabi crop, if no hassle comes by now, would be good this year and we will have a reason to smile,” said Bimal Sharma, president of farmer’s body Bundelkhand Kisan Union.
With the kind of rain the region has received in the season so far, particularly in September, famers expect Bundelkhand would get more than 1000 mm of rainfall by the end of the season—a barrier that hasn’t been breached in ages, said another farmer Prem Singh.
Data with the Banda University for agriculture shows that Bundelkhand has received 41 rainy days so far with total rainfall as on September 27 was 934 mm. Last year, when the monsoon was billed as good Bundelkhand had received 900 mm rainfall.
However, the rainfall was uneven as some districts received much below the average precipitation. For example, Mahoba had deficit of 55% in 2018 while Jhansi was 3% short.
Data furthers shows that year 2017 was the worse for Bundelkhand. It had received rains for just 25 days. Most of the districts were rain deficient with Hamirpur clocking 55%, followed by 35% in Jalaun, 30% in Banda and 26% in Jhansi.
University’s head of weather department Dr DK Saha said the rains were likely to continue for a few more days and would benefit the Rabi crops.
But, farmers rue the fact that despite bumper rains, no efforts were made to conserve water that would have helped them in their bad days.
“The government claims to have got 2000 new ponds dug up in Bundelkhand. But majority of them have vanished because of unchecked encroachments. Besides, the mechanism of new one was not quite effective as all the overflowing rivers in the absence of check dams went into Yamuna and then to the sea,” alleges a farmer Pushpendra Bhai.
He said: “A proper system for water conservation is badly needed after all Bundelkhand doesn’t receive this kind of rain every year.
Everyone is praying that nothing goes wrong in the next few months and the Mother Nature allows us to have a bumper harvest.”
The fear of farmers stem from the fact that despite having a good season in 2015 winter rains had wreaked havoc on farmers inflicting heavy losses.