Roads reserved to dry paddy in Karimnagar

From Huzurabad to Veenavanka and several other mandals, farmers are seen reserving their spots to dry paddy on roads by placing empty bags

Karimnagar: There were days when farmers used to reserve their spots in advance by placing their belongings in queue lines in front of government offices for seeds and fertilizer

Similar scenes can still be seen in different places of Karimnagar district, but not for seeds and fertilizer. These days, it is to book a spot to dry harvested paddy. From Huzurabad to Veenavanka and several other mandals, farmers are seen reserving their spots on roads by placing empty bags.

This is after the cultivation area of paddy in the State, especially in the erstwhile Karimnagar district, increased following the construction of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, in turn resulting in the quantity of the crop too.

Earlier, farmers used to engage labourers to harvest the crop and shift it to the market after drying it in the field itself. Nowadays, drying the crop has become a big problem since harvesters have been engaged to harvest the crop. It is not possible to dry paddy in the field if the crop was harvested with the help of harvesters.

With paddy purchasing centres asking farmers to bring the croponly after completely drying, farmers are nowsearching for alternate places since a majority of them do not have adequate space in their houses.

It is in this situation that they have to turned to roads. And with space there too becoming scarce, they have started to reserve their own spots. Though harvesting of the Yasangi season crop has not yet started, farmers have started reserving the space.

Some of the farmers have occupied the place by placing empty fertilizer bags along the road from KC camp of Huzurabad to Eppalanarsingapur village.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Ramesh, a resident of KC camp, informed that farmers from Eppalanarsingapur and Dammakkapet have reserved their places on the road by placing empty bags to dry paddy.

A farmer from Eppalanarsingapur, Komuraiah said that they have reserved the place on the road to dry crop since they do not have adequate space in their houses.

When asked about vehicle movement and road accidents if crops were dried on the road, he said they would dry the crop only on one side by leaving the other side free for vehicle movement.

However, road safety activists were worried more about road accidents with drying of crops on roads. Last year, a youth met with an accident and died after driving the bike through paddy placed on the road near Korutla of Jagtial district.