Station Ghanpur's MLA tells his farmers not to sow paddy: he cannot promise them water

Kadiyam Srihari, the MLA for Ghanpur Station in the Warangal-Jangaon belt, has told farmers in his constituency not to plant paddy this kharif season because he cannot guarantee irrigation water for it.

Speaking at a programme in the constituency, Srihari was quoted by Telangana Today as saying: "But do not rush into it and face ruin; I am currently not in a position to supply water. Efforts are being made to bring water from the Devadula project to resolve the crisis." According to the report, he warned that if he promised water, farmers would sow paddy only to find a month or two later that it could not be supplied, and he suggested crops that need less water — maize, red gram or green gram. He allowed a narrow window of about a week to ten days for paddy if it rained.

These quotes appear in a single outlet's account of the meeting and could not be independently corroborated; they are reported here as Telangana Today's account of what the MLA said.

The message is not Srihari's alone. Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, speaking in Khammam, urged farmers to shift to alternative crops requiring less water, recommending oil palm, millets and pulses over water-intensive paddy and chilli. "Though officials have been creating awareness about alternative crops since April, farmers may face serious difficulties if they continue to insist on cultivating paddy," he said, according to The Hans India, adding that a "super El Niño" could be more severe than the drought of 1977 and that conditions could worsen in August and September.

Earlier in the month, Tummala had made the same case with figures attached. Deccan Chronicle reported that as of that Monday, 13 districts had received normal rainfall while 20 faced deficiency, and that the department was advising alternatives such as maize, pearl millet, finger millet, red gram, green gram, sunflower, sesame, cowpea and vegetables even in canal command areas.

Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka has taken the same line, recommending alternate crops rather than paddy and cotton for the kharif season while his office weighs rain deficit, power consumption, dam levels, groundwater and drinking-water supply, according to The Hans India.

The fix Srihari holds out is the Devadula (Sri Rajiv Dummugudem) Lift Irrigation Project. That timeline is worth reading alongside his advice: The South First reported the project is expected to be fully operational only by 2027, and in January Srihari himself set a one-month deadline for Devadula works, as reported by Deccan Chronicle. Water promised from Devadula is, on the published record, some way off.

There is a fact the framing of this story tends to leave out. Srihari won Ghanpur Station on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi ticket and joined the Congress on 31 March 2024, according to his Wikipedia entry. The MLA telling his constituents that the government cannot supply their water is now a member of that government's party.

What is not yet public is the part farmers would most want: how many acres in the constituency depend on this water and how much has already been sown, current reservoir storage against last year, the rainfall deficit for this specific district, and whether the state is backing the switch away from paddy with procurement, seed or compensation. The ministers have advised the change; the support for it is not on the record here.