BHUBANESWAR: The first post-monsoon tropical storm Jawad, which was reduced to a depression, brought heavy rains across coastal districts causing massive damage to standing crops in the harvest stage at many places.
Jagatsinghpur and Ganjam were the worst affected as heavy rainfall lashed the two districts since Saturday night submerging hundreds of hectares of farmland. At many places, harvested paddy crops kept in the open are likely to be damaged because of the incessant rains.
The plight of farmers is more or less the same in all the coastal and northern districts as December is the peak harvest period for the Kharif season. Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) PK Jena said owing to heavy rainfall under the impact of the system, large-scale damage to crop is expected during the crucial harvesting season.
Rabi Jena, a farmer of Bhadrak said his crops were damaged as his farm is inundated. “If the State government does not intervene, we will have to face difficulties in the coming days,” he said. Some farmers in Cuttack district’s Niali and Banki said they had taken loans to harvest vegetables and the rainfall has caused huge losses to them. The SRC asked collectors of all the coastal districts to immediately start crop damage assessment and submit a report within seven days.
Meanwhile, Paradip received the highest rainfall of 200.5 mm between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm on Sunday as the system moved close to the Odisha coast. The port town recorded a cloud burst and got 109 mm rainfall between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm.
Khallikote in Ganjam district also received very heavy rainfall of 158 mm during the period. Heavy rain was recorded in eight other places- Nayagarh-107.5 mm, Chhatrapur 86.6 mm, Banapur 81 mm, Polosara 71.8 mm, Kodala 71.4 mm, Ganjam and Erasama 68 mm each and Rajnagar 65 mm. Several other places including Bhubaneswar and Cuttack received 13.6mm and 6 mm rainfall during the period.