Drizzle adds to farm woes in Odisha's Koraput

JEYPORE: Adding to the woes of Koraput farmers who are already reeling under the damage caused by inclement weather last week, mild drizzle with cloudy weather condition prevailed across the district on Wednesday. All farm activities came to a halt once again due to the rough weather.

Sources said farmers of Jeypore, Kotpad, Kundra, Borigumma and Boipariguda had cultivated kharif paddy over around 50,000 hectare of land and 80 per cent crop was ready to be harvested till last week of November. However, the cyclone-induced rains halted the crop-cutting exercise in most of the areas till December 6.

On Tuesday, the farmers started preparation to resume crop cutting but were forced to stop again due to the adverse weather condition. Dayanidhi Nayak, a farmer of Badajeuna panchayat said there was no warning of bad weather condition from the district emergency office.

​In the current situation, the harvested crop will get further damaged in the rains if left on the fields. The standing crop too will be damaged due to the inclement weather. Koraput emergency officer Gyanajit Tripathy admitted that there was no forecast of the prevailing rough weather for the district.