Crops over 42.84 lakh acres damaged by heavy rain in Maharashtra
MUMBAI: Over 42.84 lakh acres ready-to-harvest crops got badly damaged in the torrential rain in Maharashtra.
According to the Maharashtra agriculture minister Duttaray Bharne, the 17, 85,714 hectares (42.84 lakh acres) of standing and ready to harvest crops got damaged. Nanded is one of the worst-affected districts, where 7.28 lakh hectares of crops got badly impacted, following 2.03 lakh hectares of crops damaged in Wasim district.
In Yavatmal district, 3.18 lakh hectares, while 1.57 lakh hectares in Dharashiv, 1.77 lakh hectares in Akola, 47,266 hectares in Solapur, and 89,782 hectares of crops in Buldhana district were ruined in the heavy rain.
In the torrential rain, impacted affected districts are Hingoli, Parbhani, Amravati, Jalgaon, Wardha, Sangli, Ahilyanagar, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalna, Beed, Latur, Dhule, Jalgaon, Ratnagiri, Chandrapur, Satara, Nashik, Kolhapur, Sindhudurg, Gadchiroli, Raigad, Nagpur, and Pune.
The most suffered crops include soybean, maize, cotton, urad, tur, moong while other places, vegetables, fruit crops, millet, sugarcane, onion, jowar and turmeric crops have also been affected.
Agriculture Minister Bharen said that Maharashtra has been witnessing heavy rains and floods over the last two months, which have caused huge losses to farmers.
“The heavy rains in August and September of this year have caused huge losses in a total of 195 talukas across 30 districts of Maharashtra. The rains during this period have caused huge losses to Kharif crops in 654 revenue circles,” the agriculture minister said.
He further added that the Panchnamas in some districts have been completed, and compensation has also been extended to the affected farmers.
“The Panchnamas in the remaining areas are going on a war footing. The state is taking all possible measures to provide financial assistance to the affected farmers. State government is standing firmly with the farmers in times of this crisis,” Bharne said.
Sharad Pawar, in his Nasik farmers’ outcry rally, criticized the state government for ignoring the farmers. He said that in the last two months, more than two thousand farmers committed suicide, but no serious attention has been given.