DROUGHT SITUATION GETS CRITICAL IN RAYAGADA DISTRICT

Collector Rayagada in his letter to the Special Relief Commissioner has informed that in Rayagada District the drought like situation has become precarious and as things stand 145 out of 171 Gramapanchayats ( list given separately) have shown crop loss of more than 50 %.( Paddy as well as Non-paddy) The situation was fine till the first week of October,2011 because of intermittent rains. However, by the start of November, 2011 things started to get worse as there was no rain fall there after. Even in those G.Ps. where the crop loss is not reported to be more than 50 % there is still heavy crop loss in the range of 30 to 40 %. Winter crop cutting experiments are going on in full swing in the district and a detailed report will submitted based on the findings of this joint crop cutting experiments, as prescribed by the Relief code, by the end of December, 2011. However, based on this latest findings from the field, it is seen that more than 45% of the total cultivable area has already reported crop loss to the tune of more than 50%. The situation has become very critical and Collector Rayagada has requested the government to declare the entire district as drought affected. Given below is the list of the GPs having more than 50% crop loss.