The State Government may initiate steps to declare the State drought-hit soon after the Durga Puja festival.
The work of assessment of crop loss has been concluded and as per the trends received so far from different districts of Jharkhand, overall loss of paddy crops might go up to 30 per cent, said a senior Agriculture department official.
“According to trends coming in so far from different districts, the loss of 20 per cent may go up to over 30 per cent as paddy crops on the middle land have also started failing due to no rainfall in the month of October,” said Director, Agriculture, Jata Shankar Chaudhary. “Till now, we were expecting a loss of only lowland paddy crops in Jharkhand but now it appears that even the crops on the middle land have also started crumbling,” he said.
“Division wise, condition in Santhal Pargana is better than other areas of Jharkhand as scanty rains were recorded in the area recently giving a new lease of life to the paddy crop,” he added.
The DCs, in order to gauge the actual situation, were asked by Chief Minister Raghubar Das to submit reports with pictures to the Agriculture department and Disaster Management so that a decision could be taken accordingly on the issue. “A meeting on the issue was held through video conferencing on Friday last and a review was done. Reports from districts will be reaching to us very soon,” said Agriculture Secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni.
The Director also asserted that the reports have started coming to them. “As soon as it is compiled, it will be sent to the Disaster Management as well as to the Government of India, so that a decision is taken on the issue,” he added.
Reports coming from districts also suggested that Ranchi, Simdega, Ramgarh and Hazaribagh districts witnessed 30 per cent crop loss. lohardaga reports 35 per cent, West Singhbhum 38 per cent, Garhwa and Palamu 30 per cent each and other districts have registered crop loss between 15 to 20 per cent.
Preliminary estimates, however, suggested 20 per cent overall loss of paddy crop and 10 per cent loss of maize crop.