Kakinada: When the people are worried over the Mandous cyclone, which is causing intermittent rainfall, gales and cold weather, some people in villages near the Uppada coast are on a searching for gold along the beach for the past two days.
They are guided by a belief among the locals that whenever cyclones occur, some gold can be found on the shore. Speculations are that the Uppada coast suffered large-scale erosion many years ago and some of the houses, temples and other structures were swallowed by the sea. Pieces of gold or other ornaments may be washed ashore during the cyclonic sea waves, the people hope and hence on a search along the sands.
On Sunday too, traffic was not restored on the beach road from Kakinada till Uppada as huge waves kept hitting the road. SP Ravindranath to keep people off the beach road as the sea remained very rough.
Heavy sea waves hit the Uppada-Kothapalli beach road and some parts of the beach road were damaged after Nemam village. Officials prohibited traffic between Kakinada-Uppada beach road. Splinters of broken boulders were seen strewn all over the road.
The people of erstwhile East and West Godavari districts are experiencing intermittent rainfall and cold conditions. They remained mostly indoors.
The Mandous cyclone is causing a lot of worry to paddy farmers as the harvested crops were still in the fields and on the grounds. Intermittent rain and heavy gales occurred in Kakinada, BR Ambedkar Konaseema, Eluru, East and West Godavari districts.
Farmers are in a distress condition as their crop harvesting has not been completed. Some of the Though agriculture officials and civil supplies corporation authorities are issuing advisories for saving the crops, the farmers are unable to act due to lack of space to store the paddy. They requested the government to urgently purchase their paddy without considering the moisture content at this difficult moment.
The CPIM West Godavari district secretary Balaram said that 40 per cent of the paddy produced in this season was not sold so far and harvesting was continuing. He requested the government to purchase the harvested crop without measuring the moisture content. Due to lack of sufficient gunny bags, farmers are unable to save their crop.
Farmers urged the district administration to supply tarpaulins to them to cover the paddy heaps in the fields or on the ground from the rains.
The Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangham has urged the government to purchase paddy immediately and save the crop from rains. Farmers led by the Sangham staged a protest at the Paddy Grounds near the Rythu Bharosa Kendram in Malkapuram village in Eluru rural mandal on Saturday, between Kovvali and Eluru Road. They raised slogans, urging the government to purchase the paddy without consideration of the moisture content.
The farmers said that though they were dying the paddy, there was a delay in the purchase by the RBKs and the moisture content has increased due to the rain.
Sangham state president Krishnaiah said farmers are roaming around the government offices for getting gunny bags and transportation of their paddy to RBK centres, but the officials were not being helpful. The government reduced the target of paddy procurement and this was also causing a worry to the farmers. The Rythu Sangham would stage a demonstration in front of the civil supplies commissioner's office on Dec 12, he said.
Meanwhile, the joint collector of Kakinada district, Ilakkiya, has directed the RBKs to expedite the purchase of paddy from farmers. The procured paddy should be shifted to rice mills for custom milling without giving a chance for rain to spoil the paddy stocks, she said.
