Adilabad floods: Farmers loss crops over 3 lakh acres

Adilabad: Crops over 3 lakh acres have been damaged due to incessant rains in five districts for the past few days. However, the rains turned out to be a blessing for crops in undivided Medak, Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda districts as they saved crops growing over 5 lakh acres from withering away due to deficit rainfall for the past two months.Adilabad, Nirmal, Asifabad, Mancherial, Bhupalapally and Kothagudem districts remain the worst affected.

Road connectivity to many villages in these districts has been cut off as low-level bridges were damaged due to heavy floods. All medium and minor irrigation projects are brimming with flood water following the heavy inflows. The tanks are facing the threat of breach because of heavy water storage and floods.

Agriculture fields have been submerged in the flood waters. Cattle are facing a threat to their lives following the flood situation. Flood water entered into government schools and other offices.Farmers suffered huge losses in Adilabad district as rains washed away crops over 1.60 lakh acres.  In undivided Adilabad district alone, the loss was estimated at nearly Rs 125 crore. 

The other five districts suffered losses up to 30,000 acres. Agriculture secretary C. Parthasar-athy said, “These are only preliminary estimates. District collectors have been asked to conduct enumeration of crop loss and submit a report to the government at the earliest. The government will take a decision on extending compensation to farmers accordingly. We expect to receive the reports from districts within 4 days.”

As per preliminary estimates, cotton farmers were the worst affected as cotton crop over an extent of 1.50 lakh acres was damaged. This was followed by paddy, maize, wheat and soya.

The low-level bridges have once again proved to be of no use during the floods as flood water was flowing high over the low lying bridges at various places. This situation affected transportation and commuters. These bridges were constructed 20 years ago and are still being used for road connectivity to the interior areas. The State government is replacing them with high level bridges but the works are going on at a snail’s pace.

RTC bus services were affected between Adilabad- Karimnagar and Mancherial to Adilabad because of the flood water. The RTC buses and big vehicles are therefore taking the Dharmapuri route from Rayapatnam of Jagtial district to reach Utnoor and from there to Adilabad, traveling 70 km extra. This has also resulted in a loss to RTC in terms of burning additional diesel.Low-level bridges in Jainad and Bela also caused lot of inconvenience to the commuters.