Anantapur: Officials said that an experiment to encourage digging a large number of farm ponds as drought proofing methods has given positive results in the district. As against one lakh target of farm ponds across the district to improve groundwater sources, the district administration took the programme on a war footing and dug 53,000 ponds so far.

With just one day of rain, more than 23,000 farm ponds and also big number of irrigation ta-nks were filled and overflowing. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu expressed gratitude towards the successful experiment as the state government gave priority to the district with major allocation of funds. About `600 crore was allotted for the farm ponds and water body structures alone. "We started digging two months ago and that created awareness among the farmers to get involved. I am very happy to see the ponds were overflowing in all parts of the district," observed civil supplies minister Paritala Sunitha. She visited ponds at Venkatapuram in Ramagiri mandal.

The minister asked the people to involve themselves more in digging of farm ponds as it would benefit in peak season at least for drinking water for the animals. Anantapur collector Kona Sasidhar, who had initiated the programme, said the concept proved to help at least a little for all the farmers at their own agriculture fields. More than 23,000 farm ponds filled with the wa-ter due to rain witnessed on Saturday night. Gro-und water department officials said Kanaga-nipalli mandal received maximum rainfall of 10 cm and entire Anant-apur district received 4 cm on an average.

Collector who inspected the ponds in various parts of the district observed the concept would be speeded up to dig more number of ponds. CM N. Chandrababu Naidu expressed happiness at the sight of overflowing ponds in a day.