Kakinada, Nov 2nd: Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi on Monday stressed the need to encourage growing of pulses in areas facing water scarcity due to a substantial fall in the self-yield of Godavari River. Seeds are being supplied to farmers at subsidized prices to tide over the crisis, he said during the Grievances Day program here on Monday. While it has been decided to stick to the government order for supplying water to Rabi crops, the finer details are being worked out and the same would be communicated to the farmers at the earliest.

Mr. Dwivedi called for close coordination between officials of the Irrigation, Revenue and Agriculture Departments to deal with the crisis which appears certain to make the farmers’ lives miserable as there are a few options of meeting the full requirement of both the standing and Rabi crops because of the poor availability of water from the Godavari river and Sileru and Kinnerasani. The Government of Orissa would be asked to supply some water from Machkhand project while carefully apportioning the existing water among the central, eastern and western deltas.