Palanpur: The repeat locust attack in Banaskantha district of North Gujarat has so far affected only three bordering villages in Vav taluka even as strong possibility of their returning back to neighbouring Rajasthan and further in to Pakistan is there amid extensive control measures by the state and central government teams, District Agriculture Officer (DAO) P K Patel today said.

Patel said that Mavsari, Radha Nesda and Kundariya villages have been affected by recent locust attacks which had started just a couple of days back. Currently 10 teams were involved in to location tracking while 27 tractor mounted pesticide sprinkling teams were destroying locusts. The work of damage survey would be done once the locusts return or controlled completely. In the three villages there were standing crops of Cumin seed, black mustard seed and castor.

‘However, we have reports that the locusts were quickly returning towards Rajasthan/Pakistan due to wind pattern,’ he said.

To a query, Patel said that locust have not spread to other parts of North Gujarat so far and were limited to the three villages of his district only.

Notably the Gujarat government had earlier this month (on January 7) announced an assistance of Rs 31.50 crore to around 11 thousand farmers for damage to crops due to the Locust attack that had started from December 14 and lasted for around two weeks, in a total of 285 villages in 15 talukas of the two districts Banaskantha and Patan. The crops, mainly of castor seed and cumin seed were damaged. Of these 280 villages were in 13 talukas of Banaskantha and remaining 5 in two talukas of Patan district.

The damage of crops was in 24472 hectares in Banaskantha and 750 hectares in Patan. The affected farmers were to be paid Rs 18,500/- per hectare in the maximum limit of up to two hectares.
Even though the government had announced assistance for only two districts, locusts in fact were seen in other districts like Sabarkantha, Mahesana, Aravalli and parts of Kutch too but based on the damage criteria assistance was given to the farmers of the two districts.

This time also the farmers in affected villages were seeking damage assistance from the government.

DeshGujarat