SHARIATPUR, Mar 8: The Irri-Boro cultivation in six upazilas of the district is facing serious setback as large area of land cannot be irrigated due to shortage of electricity supply.
With drastic fall in electricity supply in the district, power-run tube-wells, both deep and shallow, can lift only a little water.
Farmers Abul Hashem Chowkider, Nuru Chowkider, Babul Majhi, Abul Kalam, of village Chhatramuria under Bhedarganj upazila of the district said that they have cultivated Irri-Boro paddy 5, 7, 3 and 5 acres of land each respectively this year with the production target of 500, 700, 300 and 500 maunds of paddy, but their cultivated lands have dried up for 15 days due to short supply of water for irrigation. As a result, they apprehended that they would not reach the production target.
The farmers of Bijhari union under Naria upazila in the district also worried that the Irri-Boro plants would dry up in the fields as it was not possible to irrigate the land.
Abdul Karim, the block manager of Irri-Boro of Rudrakar union under Sadar upazila told this correspondent that he could not operate his deep-tube well properly to supply water to the Irri-Boro fields due to low voltage and load-shedding.
According to sources at Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Shariatpur, that this year a total of 31,337 hectares of land including high-yielding variety (HYV) on 345 hectares were brought under Irri-Boro cultivation in the six upazilas of the district. The target of production has been fixed at 11, 6814 metric tons of rice. The farmers, however, achieved the target for cultivation as they got adequate supply of seeds and other inputs required for fulfilling the target.
The farmers are now facing problems in nurturing the plants due to drought and for want of water which could not be lifted by pumps and deep tube-wells due to load-shedding and erratic power supply in the district while the paddy fields are getting dried up, Md. Kabir Hossain, the Deputy Director, DAE opined.
The DAE sources said, about 3500 deep and shallow tube-wells were sunk in the district to irrigate 32,000 hectares of paddy fields in the district. The deep tube-wells could not be operated due to frequent load-shedding and erratic power supply in the district.
The DAE sources further said that if the paddy fields could not be provided with adequate water in the month of March and April, it would not help the plants to grow sheaves.
When this correspondent visited the paddy fields of Angaria, Rudrakar, Chitolia unions under Sadar upazila, Chaygaon, Sajonpur, Mohisher unions under Bhedargonj upazila of the district, found that the paddy fields have grown yellow in almost all areas including Naria, Janjira, Damudya and Gosairhat upazilas.
Anower Hossain, Billal Hossain Khan, Dil Mohammad Chowkider, Jabber Sarder, Motin Miah and Sohel Sikder, farmers of Siddya union under Damudya upazila told this correspondent that the paddy plants are drying up for want of adequate water. The erratic power supply and load-shedding are creating the problem, they alleged.
They urged the government to take necessary steps immediately to stop load-shedding in the IRRI-Boro season.
When contacted, Sohrab Ali Biswas, general manager of Shariatpur Palli Bidyut Samity said that the problem of power supply and load-shedding is a national problem. Besides, developing work of electricity has been running at various sides of the district. For this reason, temporary problem may occur.
