Standing crops in 30,000 acres damaged due to rains in Mancherial

Mancherial: The torrential rains that lashed the district for six days in a row in the last week affected normal life. They in particular wreaked havoc on nearly 18,000 farmers of the district by damaging standing crops in about 30,000 acres.

As per information provided by authorities concerned, crops being raised in 27,592 acres were damaged by the downpours. While cotton crop being grown in 26,284 acres was affected, 590 acres of paddy crop was submerged in the floods. The loss of the crop damage was assessed to be Rs 10 crore, according to primary estimations of the officials.

A total of 14,692 farmers who raised the cotton bore the brunt of nature’s fury and the growers of paddy accounted for 1,847. The farmers who sown the cotton and paddy crops were upbeat over bountiful rains in the last week of June were devastated by the incessant rains that caused huge losses to the agrarian community.

Chennur tops in crop damage
Farmers belonging to Chennur, Mancherial and Bellampalli mandals suffered more losses than their counterparts of any other mandal in the district. For instance, crops grown in 13,937 acres were affected by the rains in Chennur mandal alone, causing losses to 6,452 farmers. An extent of 5,637 acres of crops was damaged in Mancherial mandal and the affected farmers were estimated to be 3,960. Bellampalli mandal registered crop damage in 5,291 acres and affected farmers were 3,840.

Baidi Prasad Goud from Kommera village in Chennur mandal told Telangana Today that he had raised cotton in 5 acres, which was inundated by the floods. He shared that he recorded huge losses due the rains. He added that he could not plant another crop in the field till the end of this agriculture season.

Sunkari Srinivas, another grower of Paddy of Chennur mandal centre, stated that he had sown the crop in 2.5 acres. The farmers requested the government to release compensation for crop damage at the earliest. They disclosed that they invested around Rs 20,000 per acre.

Excess rainfall by 125 pc
Incidentally, Mancherial district received rainfall of 869 mm from June 1 to July 18 as against normal rainfall of 385 mm, reflecting an excess by 125 percent. While Kotapalli achieved an excess rainfall of 200 percent, Bellampalli mandal recorded excess rainfall by 199 percent and Jannaram mandals recorded excess rainfall during this monsoon.

Jannaram, Tandur, Dandepalli, Luxettipet, Hajipur, Kasipet, Vemanapalli, Nennal, Mancherial, Naspur, Jaipur and Chennur mandals had an excess rainfall of over 100 percent.