Farmer Musaliar Palli Suresh looks expectantly into a pond at Rudrasamudram village in Narayanpet district. Small baby fishes that he had released into the pond two months back have grown in size. The medium-sized fishes that swim gleefully onto the top occasionally create ripples. Hope and happiness galore as Suresh await his first harvest by March 2022. In his 5-acres farm, Suresh breeds Catla, Rohu, and Golden Fish.
He carefully removes the tangles on his fishing net. In a count of one, two, and three, he swings and casts the net onto the waters. He reels in and waits patiently for the bait to hook. He pulls it up slowly, lo and behold! 10-12 transparent cream-colored fishes with two long antennae and black protruding eyes!Three years back, Malla Reddy and Amar Dikshit joined hands and bought 16 acres of land, 10 acres for Reddy, and 6 acres for Amar in Hindupur to practice aquaculture. It required a lot of investment and maintenance cost because it was prawns but they hoped to get a good catch. And soon they learnt that it’s profitable.
In Narayanpet, a crocodile attacked farmer G Tippanna while he was clearing a blocked foot valve in River Bheema. Despite villagers’ and fishermen’s efforts, Tippanna was dragged into deep waters, leaving his family waiting on the shore farmer was attacked and dragged into River Bheema by a crocodile at Kusumurthi village here on Saturday afternoon. G Tippanna and Shivappa Gouda were making water supply arrangements in the paddy fields. After Shivappa switched on the water pump, they noticed that water was not getting pumped to the fields.
Facing procurement delays and lack of drying platforms, farmers in Narayanpet district resorted to drying paddy in a crematorium in Kosgi, highlighting ground-level distress in Kodangal constituency despite procurement operations resuming on Monday. Reflecting the hardships being faced by farming community in the State, a few farmers in Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s Kodangal constituency, dried their paddy stocks in a crematorium. Before carrying the stocks for procurement, farmers have to ensure there is no moisture content in the stocks. Accordingly, most farmers dry their stocks on the roadsides and at other places. Due to dearth of drying platforms, a few farmers dried their paddy stocks in a crematorium in the first ward of Kosgi Municipality. Though geographically KThe farmers have been drying their stocks in the crematorium since Sunday. Officials had suspended procurement, citing lack of hamalis for loading of stocks and other reasons. The procurement centre established Government College ground is about one km away from the crematorium. Already, other farmers had occupied the available limited space for drying their stocks and left with no choice, the farmers left the stocks there for drying at the crematorium. Procurement commenced on Monday but farmers had to wait for their turn.
