River erosion threatens fertile lands at Baduguvanilanka
Farmers in Konaseema live in constant fear as fertile lands sink into the river every flood season
Rajamahendravaram: Whenever the mighty Godavari swells with floods, fear grips the hearts of farmers living in the Lanka villages that line its banks. Year after year, fertile farmlands are being eaten away by the river’s relentless erosion, leaving farmers of Baduguvanilanka in Alamuru mandal deeply worried about their future.
The name “Baduguvanilanka” has become synonymous with river erosion in Konaseema. This scenic river island village, known for its lush flower gardens, vegetable fields, and fruit orchards, once stretched over more than 3,000 acres. But over the years, about 800 acres have already been lost to the river’s fury.
These lands are among the most fertile in the delta, where an acre can fetch between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 80 lakh. By this measure, the land swallowed by the Godavari so far is worth well over Rs 400 crore.
Following repeated appeals from distressed farmers, protective works were undertaken in 2006 when stone revetments and groynes were constructed at critical points to reduce erosion. This helped for a while, but in areas left unprotected, the problem persisted. Two years ago, the Reliance Gas Pipeline Company undertook additional revetment work at a cost of Rs 42 crore to reinforce the embankments.
This year, floods hit the area not once but three times in August, September, and October. Though the water did not reach the third danger level, the river stayed above the first and second warning marks for several consecutive days.
The continuous flow has caused severe damage where the new and old revetments meet, particularly near the Burma Society (Redlu Lanka), where land has caved in at two locations.
Over the last four days alone, several flower gardens and vegetable farms have been washed away before the eyes of helpless farmers.
“Such rapid erosion has not been seen before,” said Kondreddi Srinivas of Alamuru, adding that the intensity of erosion has been increasing in recent years. He fears that if this continues, not only will the Lanka lands disappear, but even the dry fields and the village itself could be at risk of submergence. Farmers are now demanding that once the floodwaters recede, the government should immediately take up permanent embankment strengthening works and revetment to prevent further damage.
Normally, the Godavari’s floodwaters rise in July and begin to recede by the third week of September. But this year, even in the first week of October, the river remains swollen. At the Dowleswaram barrage, the water level has been around 11 feet for the past ten days, with over nine lakh cusecs of water being released into the sea.
Since mid-August, the river has been discharging an average of eight lakh cusecs daily, an unusually long spell of high flow rarely witnessed in the past, say coastal residents. Experts believe that the prolonged high pressure of floodwaters may have caused seepage and weakening under the revetments, leading to breaches. For the farmers of Baduguvanilanka, the battle against the Godavari’s mighty current continues as a struggle to save not just their land, but their way of life itself.
