Just when farmers from undivided Nalgonda were ready to reap a bumper crop, thanks to adequate rainfall and irrigation in the Kharif season, Tuesday’s torrential rain and flood came as a curse.
Preliminary damage assessment by respective Agriculture departments state that a total of 1,12, 425 acres was affected.
In Nalgonda alone, the damage was reported in 49,744 acres. Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri was second with 43,794 acres and Suryapet at 18,887 acres. Paddy and cotton were predominantly cultivated following the State’s regulated farming system, except for red gram in 211 acres in Suryapet.
Crops were damaged, according to officials, mainly due to water-logging, inundation of standing crops and sand casting. Over 11,263 farmers were affected in Nalgonda alone.
But, situation in Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri, which recorded extremely heavy rainfall (more than 20.45 cm) such as in Valigonda, Choutuppal and Ramannapet, the ‘categories of damage’ are concerning.
Harvested paddy heaps were damaged in 100 acres in Bhongir and 19 acres in Ramannapet. The preliminary report confirms that 43,675 acres in 14 mandals have crops in submerged condition. Collectors of the three districts along with MLAs and officials conducted the procurement preparedness meet here in Nalgonda only on Monday.
It was stated that paddy, in about 10 lakh acres, in undivided Nalgonda would exceed last season’s record procurement by witnessing nearly 15 lakh metric tonnes now.
Farmers across the districts were visibly depressed when leaders visited the villages. A few farmers, believing that the weather condition had normalised from the clear skies, went about their work by draining the soaked paddy and spreading it to dry.
53,000 ryots hit
In Khammam, the heavy rainfall over the last three days left large tracts of agricultural fields waterlogged, damaging cotton and paddy crops spread over 75,364 acres in 345 villages. More than 53,358 farmers were affected, said preliminary estimates.
Paddy and cotton crops were damaged on a little over 38,111 acres and 37,227 acres respectively, sources said.
Affected mandals were Sattupalli, Vemsoor, Madhira and Bonakal mandals.
In Bhadradri-Kothagudem, crops including paddy, cotton, groundnut and chilli were damaged in an estimated 8313 acres in the tribal dominated district.
A little over 4000 farmers suffered crop losses owing to the rain devastation, official sources said.
Khammam Collector R V Karnan inspected the Bethupalli tank left canal, which suffered a breach.
He asked the officials to carry out repairs.