Farmers who had lost their crops to severe droughts in the last two years are expecting a good harvest this year as over 1,500 farm ponds in the district are brimming with water and the District Watershed Development Agency (DWDA) has launched an ambitious project to increase the area under cultivation of millets and pulses.
The DWDA, which was implementing Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) in eight blocks in the district, has encouraged the farmers to shift from the traditional paddy cultivation to cultivation of millets and pulses, especially red gram, to earn additional income. “We proposed to double the area under cultivation of millets and pulses from the existing 500 hectares,” R. Ganesan, Joint Director of Agriculture and Project Officer, DWDA, told reporters during a recent press tour. The DWDA had also introduced fish farming in farm ponds to help the farmers to augment their income, he said.
As the department supplied about 3,000 fingerlings of ‘rohu’ and ‘catla’ per farm pond free of cost, the farmers could earn Rs.30,000 to Rs.40,000 in six months. Farmers in Sivaganga and Tirupuvanam blocks had already harvested the fish, he said. “We have introduced fish farming in about 400 farm ponds and initiated steps to cover all the 1,522 farm ponds in the coming months,” Mr. Ganesan said.
As Collector V. Rajaraman was keen on diversifying the cropping pattern, the DWDA was encouraging farmers to take up cultivation of ‘kudhiraivali’, red gram and black gram, he said.
The farmers were encouraged to cultivate fruit-bearing trees on the bunds of farm ponds. The DWDA was supplying saplings of mango, papaya, guava and sappotta to the farmers for free, he said.
The agency cleaned up supply channels to enable free flow of water to waterbodies and desilted the waterbodies. “We have cleaned supply channels up to a length of 110 km in the catchment areas,’ he noted.
The agency also distributed revolving fund for women self-help groups in the district. The groups were making candles, incense sticks, phenol and ‘Agal villakku’, he added.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/farmers-eye-millets-as-ponds-brim-with-water/article6650179.ece