Padmapur: Farmers of Melaksahi area under Padmapur panchayat under Basudevpur block in Odisha’s Bhadrak district Monday donned engineers’ hat and repaired the sluice gates of the check dam built across the Kanchudi River. The check dam was constructed 20 years ago.
Farmers of Padmapur, Sugo, Edtal, Lunga panchayats under Basudevpur block and Sahada panchayat in Bhadrak block largely depend on this sluice gate for irrigation. In rainy season, the sluice gate not only helps store rain water but also control flood.
Four of the seven sluice gates of this 20-year-old dam had developed holes caused by rust resulting in the farmers not being able to hold back the rain water. The villagers had then met the district collector and the officials of the irrigation department on several occasions urging their intervention but to no avail.
Owing to lack of water, these farmers were facing a lot of problems in continuing with their agricultural activities which is why they were apprehending a drought like situation.
The farmers finally stepped forward and decided to do something on their own. Spending over Rs 30, 000, they bought bamboo poles and finally succeeded in checking the flow of water.
“Now we can use the stored water in agriculture,” observed the exalted farmers.
But for the cooperation from all the farmers and the villagers, the job could have never been possible, opined some locals namely Dhaneswar Nayak, Muktikanta Nayak, harekrushna Nayak, Subash Nayak, Prashant Nayak and Sukadev Nayak who led the team from the front.
PNN