Unseasonal rains, hailstorms damage crops again in Mahabubabad, Jangaon districts

Farmers suffered huge crop loss as the paddy had almost reached the harvesting stage in many places.

Mahabubabad/Jangaon: Unseasonal rains and hailstorms have damaged maize, paddy, mango and other crops in thousands of acres in both Mahabubabad and Jangaon districts on Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile, rains that lashed Hanamkonda and Warangal districts on Saturday and Sunday also damaged the standing crops and the paddy stored at the paddy purchase centres (PPCs). Farmers suffered huge crop loss as the paddy had almost reached the harvesting stage in many places. Farmers were already expecting low yield due to multiple attacks of the pests and insects on the paddy during this Yasangi season.

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Meanwhile, the unseasonal rains coupled with gales and hailstorm flattened the crop in the paddy fields. The rains lashed eight mandals of Mahabubabad district. Several power poles and trees were also uprooted due to the rains.

Mahabubabad District Collector K Shashanka said that crops in 11,621 acres had been damaged due to rains lashed on Friday night in the district as per the rough estimations. “We need to enumerate the crop loss to know the exact figure of the acres of crops that got damaged,” he said.

Meanwhile, crops in 21,559 acres were damaged in Jangaon district due to rains on Saturday. Three mandals –Bachannapet, Jangaon and Raghunathpally- were badly hit by the rains damaging paddy, maize, mango and other crops. While paddy was damaged in 20320 acres, mango was damaged in 1232 acres. A total of 9827 farmers were affected by the rains and hailstorm in 42 villages, according to the preliminary estimations.

District Collector Ch Shivalingaiah along with the revenue, agriculture and other officials has visited the Peddapahad and Vadlakonda villages to take stock of the situation.

In March this year, unseasonal rains and hailstorm had damaged crops in a total of 85,670 acres owned by 74,797 farmers in the erstwhile Warangal district. The State government also released Rs.85.67 crore towards compensation a couple of days ago.