The swirling water in the Mahanadi system may have calmed down to a great extent and water in the main river and its distributaries dropped down to the bed levels from full-embankment positions. But the plight of the affected people is just beginning to multiply. The worries and miseries the high floods in the Mahanadi system have inflicted on lakhs of people in coastal Odisha are quite massive and mammoth and are not certainly going to heal in the near future.
Also, the financial hardships the peasants have suffered are immense and they are now crying for immediate help and hand-holding support from the State Government for survival.
Standing paddy crops and vegetable orchards in thousands of hectares of land have got washed away in the gushing flood waters of Mahanadi and its numerous distributaries flowing across the coastal districts. What has added to the worries of the farmers is that their farmlands have got silted and rendered uncultivable. In order to clear the farmlands of silts and sand deposits, the farmers require financial as well as technical support from the State Government.
“We are poor farmers. We sustain our families by growing paddy and horticultural crops. This year, the flood in the Bhargavi and Dhanua rivers washed away all our crops. We don’t know where to get money from to make our lands cultivable again. We appeal to the State Government to extend us financial support for distillation and removal of sand layers from our farmlands,” Bauribandhu Bhol, a farmer of Garapada village under Nimapara block in Puri district, said on Tuesday.
Giridhari Bhutia, a farmer of Kujanga in Jagatsinghpur also narrated a similar story of crop damage. He said nearly five thousand farmers of his area had lost all their investments on agriculture this season. Farmers in Boudh, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Kendrapada, Khordha and Puri districts also shared their own pathetic stories.
“Many farmers borrow money from local money lenders at hefty interest rates to grow crops and they repay the debt after harvests. Now, they find themselves left in the lurch. They are literally scratching their heads as to how they will repay the loans,” said Kambhudhar Kheti, a village head in Boudh district.
Though the State Government is yet to share official figures with regard to the affected population, nearly one third of the State’s 4.5 crore people have been hit by the disaster.
The Government has asked the Collector of the affected districts to make an early assessment of the flood damage and submit the reports. Besides, it has asked the Collectors to provide cooked food, dry food, drinking water and medicine as per the required quantity to the affected people.