GANJAM: We visited Podagada, a
beautiful village surrounded by hills near the Bay of Bengal,
under Ramagarh gram panchayat of Ganjam district to take stock of the situation
after Phailin. While entering to the village, we saw a gigantic tree destroyed
in the cyclone and an asbestos house of one Ramesh Pradhan near the tree was
also totally damaged. Like Ramesh’s house, 12 another houses of the village had
been damaged. We met some elder persons of the village. They told us about the
huge loss due to heavy damage of fruit bearing trees like coconut, mango,
jackfruit and cashew along with kewda yards.
The villagers said that paddy
crops were affected as salty water of a canal connecting sea and Chilika entered
into the paddy field. “The paddy plants, which were in a stage of flowering,
were destroyed due to the storm,” said Jogi Pallai, a villager, adding, “It
will severely affect the yield.”
Another villager Pabana Pradhan,
a farmer who cultivates kewda flower, said that most of the kewda grooves faced
the ire of the Phailin. “I can’t get a single flower this year, though I
usually pluck 400 to 500 flowers everyday during the season,” he lamented.
After processing, kewda flowers
are normally used for perfume and Gutkha industry. Around 20,000 acres of land
in the areas Chikiti, Ganjam, Chatrapur and Rangeilunda of Ganjam district have
kewda grooves. It has a good market in and outside of the country, but Phailin
wiped them out.
We visited Karpada village under
Ganjam block to see the condition of betel vines. We found vine yards severely
affected. Most of the leaves were rotten. A farmer of the village Raju Reddy
said the betel leaves were in demand and the farmers earn good money out of it,
but the gale razed them all.
Notably, around 2,000 acres of
land in the blocks of Ganjam, Rangeilunda, Patrapur, Hinjili have betel vine
yards and the farmers sell it in and outside of the State to get good money,
but the recent crop loss created a heavy burden on the farmers.
Similarly, lakhs of cashew trees
had been destroyed in several places of the district. Cashew is another
important cash crop in the district which has been grown over 50,000 hectares
of land in Ganjam, Chatrapur, Khallikote and other blocks. “I lost two acres
filled with cashew trees in the cyclone, which will take years to get its
previous state,” said farmer Dama Pradhan of Podagada-Jhatipadar village under
Ganjam block.
Loss of livelihood along with
houses in the cyclone has left the farming community in utter distress.
Electricity problem will be solved after October 30 according to Energy
Minister Arun Sahoo, but the restoration of livelihood of lakhs of farmers may
take a pretty long time.
Published on October 23, 2013 in The Pioneer
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