Deogaon: Even as the state government had promised to make provision for a separate feeder for lift irrigation points and deep bore-wells, scores of lift irrigation points in Deogaon block of Bolangir district have been lying defunct sans electricity, a report said.
Farmers have to suffer a lot in saving their crops in the event of water scarcity.
Farmers alleged that about three and a half years ago tube wells have been sunk in Brahmanijora panchayat. But they are of no use to the beneficiary farmers, because electricity has not been supplied to these points.
Farmers like Bijay Rai, Jadupati Bhoi, Dibakar Bhoi, Bikar Bhoi, Kadam Bhoi, Biseswar Hota, Natittam Bhoi and Shibaprasad Bhoi narrated their ordeal.
“We applied for bore wells for our farmland in 2017. Each of us had to deposit Rs 20,000 each at the Union Bank branch here to get bore wells which were sunk March 23, 2017. But they have not been operationalised till date,” Bijay rued.
Though these farmers have apprised the authorities concerned through written complaints, no step has been taken, they alleged.
As the executive engineer of the Irrigation department did not pay heed to their problem, the farmers took up the issue with the Collector April 4, 2019.
The then, Collector had directed the authorities to redress the issue with immediate effect, but it fell on deaf years of the department, they lamented.
They observed that the government schemes are being executed in such haphazard manner at the ground level. The government should wake up to this reality, they noted.
A couple of years ago, the state government had made an ambitious plan to install one lakh bore-wells in the state in three years to overcome the water scarcity for irrigation. Besides, the other objective was to ensure assured irrigation to at least 35 per cent of cultivable land of each block. However, this objective has been defeated at Brahmanijora panchayat, it was alleged.
Notably, the state government had launched the deep bore-well scheme under Biju Krushak Vikash Yojana in 2010-11 with a target to sink 50,000 bore-wells by January, 2014.
PNN