Farmers from Uravakonda, Guntakal and Aluru Assembly constituencies lost stocks of dry chillies kept in a cold storage at Ballari industrial estate in Karnataka after the building caught fire.
The five-floor Jayanthi Cold Storage caught fire at 9 p.m. on Saturday and four fire engines struggled till morning to douse the fire after chillies in three floors turned into ash.
Till the reports last came in, the stocks in two upper floors were saved. The loss, however, is estimated to run into a couple of crores of rupees.