Heavy rainfall in Bidar on Friday night further dashed the hopes of farmers who are already reeling under the impact of last week’s floods.
In just one night , the district received 64.5 mm of rainfall as against the monthly average of 90.2 mm for the month of October. The highest of 109 mm was recorded in Bidar.
Areas like Anand Nagar were flooded. Water entered the houses in CMC Colony and Pratap Nagar. Choubarah Circle in the old city area and Rotary Circle in the new city were flooded. Commuters suffered as heavy rain resulted in traffic disruption on Bidar-Zaheerabad Road. Schoolchildren had to wade through water near the District Hospital and on Janawada Road.
Six electricity poles and a transformer were uprooted near the district forest office. GESCOM personnel were engaged in removing entangled wires and setting right the poles. Parts of the city like Shiva Nagar, Raghavendra Colony, Mohan Market, DCC Bank and surrounding areas witness power outages. “Rainfall across the district was very high for one day. This can further damage crops like red gram,” said K. Ziaullah, Joint Director of Agriculture. If the crop suffers water logging for the next 3-4 days, it will suffer physiological death, he added. Meanwhile, low to moderate rain is expected in the district for the next two days. Even light showers will have to be considered excess as they will add to the flood discharge. Water will not percolate as it has breached the optimum levels, he said.
According to preliminary surveys by the Agriculture Department, soya growers have suffered nearly 100 per cent loss owing to the dense showers in September. The district received over 1,200 mm of rain in the first nine months of the year which is beyond the annual average of 900 mm.
This rain caused widespread loss, including breach of six tanks and loss of crops on over 1.6 lakh hectares. Rain-related incidents also caused the death of five persons, including a six-month-old child. As many as 19 bridges were submerged cutting of around 120 villages from the main land.
The district administration officials had submitted a memorandum seeking input subsidy of Rs.102 crore for crop loss affected farmers. Chief Minister Siddharamaiah, who visited rain hit areas recently, announced an interim relief of Rs. 50 crore.
