With heavy rains accompanied by strong winds lashing Punjab and the neighbouring State of Haryana at a time when the Rabi crop is standing and is in the grain formation stage, the fears of extensive damage have arisen.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday ordered a special “girdawari” or assessment by the agriculture and revenue department officials to assess the loss to crops caused due to the heavy rain and hailstorm in different parts of the State. The Chief Minister has also directed that the report be submitted at the earliest.
Haryana appears to have borne the brunt of the weather as the rainfall recorded in the State was as high as 97 mm in Karnal. Further north in Amritsar in Punjab it was recorded at 77 mm.
A wheat growing farmer of Badshahpur village in Gharonda, near Karnal, Sukhwant Singh said standing crops have been damaged by the rain, which was accompanied by strong winds. In Haryana, which produced about 64 lakh tonnes of the 263 lakh tonnes of wheat produced in the country in 2013-14, the damage is more widespread because large parts of the State have soil which retains water or where the water does not drain due to a high water table.
Mr Singh said in his village and adjoining areas wheat is grown in about 70 per ccent of the land while the remaining is used for growing vegetables, sugarcane or mustard.
“The crop is standing right now and the grain formation is going on. The wind has flattened much of the crop. Had the rain and winds come about 10 days later the damage would not have been this extensive for the sticks and the grains would have firmed up by then. Also lesser rain without wind would have helped improve the grain quality.”
The farmers have also suffered because they had used up all the inputs – seeds, urea, manure and the labour and energy required for raising the crops and watering the fields.
In case of mustard, which is nearing the harvesting stage, the winds have caused the grain to fall.
Another farmer of the village, Rajinder Singh, said about 40-50 per cent of the fields are tilled by landless farmers who take them on lease after paying a rent of Rs 45,000-55,000 per acre.
