A six-member BJP national fact finding team led by national general secretary of BJP Krushak Morcha P Sugunakar Rao visited Nuapada district on Saturday to take stock of drought and pest affected areas and farmers’ issues.
The team visited Sarabong and Dumerpani villages of Nuapada block and drought affected lands of Palsipani village of Komna block and discussed with the farmers in detail about the situation. The farmers narrated before the team how the consecutive droughts have broken their backbone.
An estimate done by the Agriculture and Revenue departments reveals that above 1,800 hectares (ha) of paddy crop have been damaged in Nuapada block alone by pest. The damage is about 40.29 ha in Komna block, 826 ha in Sinapali, 250 ha in Boden and 120 ha in Khariar blocks. “The crop condition in Nuapada is grave, the concerns raised by the State BJP on farmers issue is genuine,” said the members. “We will submit a detailed report on the situation here to the national committee and our PM, Modiji,” they added.
The district BJP Krushak Morcha of Nuapada led by its president Sanjay Tiwari submitted a memorandum to the national team elaborating on the current crop situation and conditions of farmers in the district.
“Nuapada district is reeling under severe drought this year followed by two consecutive years of drought. The crop lands under the ayacut of different irrigation projects have also failed due to insufficient water storage. Paddy fields which were saved by getting limited irrigation facilities were also damaged due to pest attack in the last part of October. Crop loss due to drought was more than 80 per cent of the total area of 56,000 ha under paddy crop in the district. Now, crop damage due to pest attack is about 3,500 ha,” stated the memorandum.
In the meanwhile, the District level Procurement Committee has fixed the target of paddy procurement for the 2017 Kharif season. The district committee fixed the target at 8 lakh quintals for the first phase. Considering the massive failure of paddy crop in the district, achieving this target seems bleak. But the experiences of procurement in past years reveal that the procurement target is regularly achieved even when there is low level of achievement in production level. For example, the achievement in procurement in 2015 Kharif was 98 per cent against the target of 7.79 lakh quintals, although above 70 per cent crop failure was recorded in 80 per cent of the crop lands. It has always remained a mystery, how the paddy procurement goes so high in spite of massive crop loss in the district.