Farmers suffer as rains cause damage to paddy stocks in Telangana

HYDERABAD: Sudden unseasonal heavy rains on Wednesday caused extensive damage to the paddy which was harvested and brought to various procurement centres in several districts across the state.

Farmers suffered huge losses as paddy stocks were washed away in some procurement centres and got wet in some other centres. The slow pace of paddy procurement and lack of adequate tarpaulins to protect paddy stocks in the event of rains resulted in huge losses to farmers. Standing crops including mosambi and lemon crops were also damaged badly due to heavy rains.

Besides paddy, electricity poles and temporary sheds set up at procurement centres were also damaged due to flash rain coupled with heavy wind that hit the districts. Although the state Cabinet took a decision to procure 65 lakh tonnes of paddy in the ongoing rabi season on April 12 by setting up 6,920 centres at village-level, the civil supplies department could set up only 3,525 centres till date and procured just 4.21 lakh tonnes.

With this, lakhs of tonnes of paddy are lying in thousands of procurement centres for the past one month. With the weather officials forecasting rains in several districts for the next three days, farmers are a worried lot over suffering further losses unless the government supplies adequate tarpaulins on a war-footing and expedite the procurement process.

Paddy stocks stored at procurement centres in Gollapalli mandal headquarters and Ramnur of Velgatur mandal of Jagtial district, Khilavanaparthy, Narsimhullapalli, Dharmaram mandal headquarters and Garrepalli of Sultanabad mandal of Peddapalli district were soaked due to rain.

In Nalgonda district, paddy stocks were damaged at Chinthapally, Pedda Adisherlapally, Thripuraram, Madgulapally, Thirumalagiri, Gurrampode, Kattangur, Nidmanoor, Miryalaguda and Narketpally.

In Yadadri-Bhongir district, heavy rains lashed in Rajapet, Bhongir, Yadagirigutta, Athmakur, Mothkur, Turkapally, Bommalaramaram, Bibinagar, Pochampally, Choutuppal, Narayanpur, Ramannapet, Valigonda and Gundala mandals due to which the paddy stocks at procurement centers become wet. The sudden rains impacted the paddy procurement  as weighing of paddy would be taken up only after drying of the crop.