Assam CM Reviews Rain Shortfall Impact, Orders Irrigation Push and Farmer Aid

GUWAHATI: To assess the impact of deficient rainfall on Assam’s agriculture, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma chaired a meeting on July 17 at Lok Sewa Bhawan with top officials of the Agriculture Department and scientists from the Regional Meteorological Centre. CM Sarma reviewed data from affected districts and directed the Chief Secretary of Assam to boost irrigation efforts and step up departmental action to support farmers.

However, scanty rainfall and the lack of adequate irrigation facilities have left the farmers of the state in the lurch, as they cannot sow paddy seedlings in their fields. While some farmers are spending money on their own to irrigate their lands, others are taking to folk beliefs like arranging frog marriages to appease the Rain God.

Assam is an agrarian state where the Agriculture and Irrigation departments have utterly failed to perform. The gross crop area in the state is 52.75 lakh hectares, and the area sown is 27.56 lakh hectares. The department needs to irrigate these areas, but they utterly failed to perform this job.

The plan is to irrigate 17 lakh hectares of land through minor irrigation schemes and 10 lakh hectares of land through major and medium irrigation schemes. Apart from these, the Agriculture Department installs shallow tube wells for irrigation purposes. The affected areas in this dry spell are Nalbari, Tihu, Kamalpur, Dhing, Barpeta, etc.

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