By IANS,
Raipur : Water reservoirs in Chhattisgarh are only 60 percent full as the monsoon nears its end, renewing fears of a drop in farm output in coming months. Reservoirs in the state are usually full to 80 percent capacity by the end of the monsoon, the season during which India gets almost all its annual rainfall.
An official said here Friday that the reservoirs have 3,835 million cubic metres of water against the capacity of 6,400 million cubic metres, as per data complied by the Water Resource department Thursday.
The official said the reservoirs should have been about 80 percent full by now to support irrigation of crops till the next monsoon.
The agriculture department estimates that the state will miss its targeted production of 6.55 million tonnes paddy this season due to scanty rain and insufficient water in reservoirs.
The state had produced 5.7 million tonnes of paddy in 2008 when most of its reservoirs had reached 90 percent storage capacity during the monsoon.