Heavy rains that have been lashing Adilabad in Telangana for the past five days have damaged 1,25,000 acres of crops, according to preliminary reports. The government has constituted 101 teams of officers from the revenue and agricultural department to survey the losses.
The flash floods have damaged roads, houses and crops. According to reports, two relief camps have been set up.
Even as the government makes relief efforts, a fundraiser has begun online. Suresh Ediga, an agrarian activist, is attempting to crowdfund through Milaap, to cover the costs of the crop loss to farmers, among several other things.
“Several houses have been damaged. We visited the worst affected areas and decided to go for a fundraiser. The government should take quick steps to rebuild them. More disheartening and worrying for the farmers is the damage of their crops. All of them were cultivating cash crops like cotton and soya beans. They are worried about going into a debt, hence we started raising funds for agriculture,” Suresh said.
“The goal of the fund raiser is to raise funds to support the non-insured farmers who have lost everything including their homes and the farms. The funds will be collected via Centre For Sustainable Agriculture and distributed in coordination with the district administration,” the fundraising campaign states.
The campaign has managed to raise Rs 240,363 so far, but it is looking to raise Rs 1 crore.
Despite repeated attempts to contact District Collector Divya Devarajan, she remained unavailable to share details about the estimated damage and how the government is handling the crisis.
District Agriculture officer Mangilal told TNM, “The preliminary estimate of loss is 1,25,000 acres of crops which include cotton, red gram and soya beans. We have sent that to the government. However, we need to individually verify them. A total of 101 teams are constituted for the purpose.”
“We are yet to do the survey, it is getting delayed due to the rains. We are trying to finish the survey in two weeks,” he added.
The flash floods in the district dominated with Tribal communities has also left several Adivasis homeless.
According to reports, two Adivasi villages—Arkapally and Gundamlodhi were completely flooded as a result the villagers had to flee from their village and take shelter elsewhere for two days. Both these villages have around 20 families each.
Learning about the plight of these victims, an NGO—Pure Organization has provided them with provisions like rice, dal, oil and other food commodities.
Speaking to TNM, Ravi Kumar Koona, a volunteer said, “We have provided them with the essentials worth Rs 85,000. We provided relief to the ones we came to know through local newspapers. We don’t know about the others.”
Meanwhile, the Indian Meteorological Department has forecasted that heavy rains will continue in Adilabad, Nirmal, Mancherial, Nizamabad, Jagitial, Karimnagar and Rajanna Sircilla districts.