Koppal: The State Government had announced to provide chamber-type irrigation to the land in Koppal area under the Singatalur Lift Irrigation Scheme. However, an expert committee has recently inspected Mundargi and Koppal areas and has not taken a clear decision on the feasibility.
The Singatalur Lift Irrigation Project has been a long-standing demand of the District. The Government has modified the earlier scheme for canal irrigation. The idea of providing water to more farmers’ lands and drip irrigation of canal irrigation has been done and more areas have been added to the scheme. There were also allegations that drip pipes under drip irrigation would not remain in farmers’ fields. Recently, the Government had decided to replace drip irrigation with a chamber model akin to Madhya Pradesh.
There were also lot of efforts put in MP Sanganna Karadi in this regard. However, Irrigation Department officials said that the irrigation technical team had raised the issue in a recent meeting that it would be difficult to provide chamber-type irrigation. A technical team of irrigation experts inspected Koppal and Mundaragi areas and also inspected the site. Their inspection included several parts of the irrigated area encompassing the land level, and also examined the technology. If irrigation is done in a chamber model, water will be brought up to the pump house. From there, the idea of how to take water to the farmers’ fields or how to drain the water has come up.
All farmers cannot carry water through pipeline. In the case of poor, small and medium farmers, it is difficult. So It is learnt that farmers will be burdened here and a proposal has come up before the technical team.
The Government had decided to do chamber model irrigation in Singatalur Lift Irrigation Project. A committee consisting of a retired engineer has already been constituted and there are three options before the committee to provide irrigation. Nothing has been decided yet. There is also a provision to provide pipes to every farmer’s land. This will be discussed with the officials too.
People are waiting for the project to happen and hence the Government should make arrangements to provide canal irrigation to the farmers’ land on the lines of the chamber. It is not right to delay just by giving reasons. Y. N. Gowder, an irrigation activist and a technical team, visited Mundargi and Koppal, recently. Many issues came up for discussion before the technical team. An official of the Irrigation Department said that a meeting will be held again and a decision will be taken on irrigating the farmers’ land.
