Indiscriminate release of water by DVC & rains likely to hit onion cultivation in state

Kolkata: Incessant rainfall that lashed the southern districts of Bengal on the last two days of September and "indiscriminate release of water by Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC)" has caused massive damages to agriculture in Bankura with onion cultivation that was taken up in a large scale in the district for the Kharif season suffering a lot.

"We had cultivated onion on 2000 acres of land in this kharif season to make up for the deficit that crops up during winter months. But heavy rain and the indiscriminate release of water by Damodar Valley Corporation have resulted in Damodar river flooding its banks and inundating agricultural lands," Subhasis Batabyal, Chairman of West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation, Bankura said.

"The Chief Minister has already termed this as a man-made flood and this is true in context of Bankura," the chairman added.

Mejia, Barjora, Sonamukhi, Indus, Patrasayer, Saltora which are situated close to the river bank have been severely hit. Paddy cultivation and vegetable cultivation have suffered too.

Batabyal is apprehensive that the price of onion which has already started soaring in the market will be on the higher side at least for the next three- four months.

Subrata Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary of state Food Processing & Horticulture department said that onion cultivation at Bankura and Hooghly have suffered. "If the inundation persists for some more days, then there will be more damage but if water recedes in two-three days we will be able to recover some of the crop. We are assessing the extent of damage and accordingly steps will be taken based upon the ground situation," he said.

The Horticulture department is taking all possible measures to drain out water quickly from the agriculture lands.

The state has to import over 6 lakh metric tonnes of onion annually to cater to its annual demand of 13 lakh metric tonnes. In the year 2019-20, the state grew 6.70 metric tonnes. The state had cultivated onion on 1800 acre of land in nine districts with the aim to cut down import of the cash crop.

Bankura has received over 350 mm rainfall in a little over 24 hours time from Wednesday to Thursday. According to the damage report released by the district administration, 24 blocks covering 230 Gram Panchayats have been affected. There have been three casualties with 5798 houses damaged and 65968 population getting affected.

At least 9446 relief camps have been set up and about 20393 persons have been evacuated.