VIJAYAWADA: Taking stock of the agriculture and horticulture losses due to heavy rains under the impact of depression for the past few days, Minister for Agriculture Kurasala Kannababu on Saturday directed officials to enumerate the losses at the earliest and submit a detailed report. Crop loss enumeration exercise is likely to commence from Sunday or Monday.
The minister said Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has directed that all possible help should be extended to the farmers who suffered losses due to rains and floods. “As directed by the Chief Minister, officials along with agriculture scientists should visit the inundated agriculture fields to study the crop and come up with means to reduce the losses. Accordingly, farmers should be advised,” he added.
On the occasion, officials informed him that paddy damage was more in East Godavari, West Godavari and Kadapa districts. Bengal gram crop in Kadapa and paddy nurseries in Nellore suffered damage.The minister asked them to visit the rain and flood affected districts and made horticulture commissioner Sridhar, Joint Director Sridhar and Seeds MD Sekhar Babu as incharges for East Godavari, West Godavar and Kadapa districts, respectively, for crop loss enumeration. They were asked to coordinate with state-level officials and those from the respective districts.
Members of agriculture advisory boards were also asked to visit the affected villages, interact with farmers and study the damaged crop. Officials were asked to identify the farmers who suffered bengal gram corp damage and provide them with new seeds on 80 per cent subsidy. Further, they were asked to relax the regular norms while procuring paddy.
Officials of East Godavari, West Godavari and Krishna districts were directed to clear the drains and canals, which are now filled with silt. They were further asked to coordinate with irrigation department officials to see that rain water gets drained through irrigation canals and channels. Special Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Poonam Malakondaiah, agriculture commissioner H Arun Kumar and other officials were present.