The farmers have suffered heavy paddy loss, in about 4.04 lakh acre land, due to waterlogging in Ambala, Kurukshetra, and Yamunanagar districts following incessant rain and floods in the region.

In Kurukshetra, agriculture department teams visited the fields on Wednesday and met farmers to ascertain the ground situation and take inputs about the damage to crops and floods in their area.

Randhir Singh of Diwana village in Pehowa block of Kurukshetra said, "Paddy in my 7 acres of land is under the water, and about 200 acres of the crop is waterlogged heavily in our village. Water has still not receded from our fields. We plan to cultivate a late variety of paddy after it (water) recedes."

Another farmer from Tharouli village in Ismailabad said he had lost all his crop as all the fields in his village are waterlogged. The water is just not draining out, he said.

Expressing similar sentiments, Gurmeet Singh of Manderi village said: "10 acres of paddy cultivated by me is now waterlogged. I fear 100% loss. The water is not draining out from the fields."

Kurukshetra deputy director agriculture Pardeep Meel said, "We will support the affected farmers with technical knowhow and would advise them to cultivate late variety paddy like PB 1692, PR 126. Our teams are ascertaining the ground situation of waterlogging, crop health and so on.

When asked about any contingency plan, as advised by the agriculture department, Ambala deputy director agriculture Jasvinder Singh said, "At most, we can delay sowing of late variety of non-basmati paddy and basmati crop in the field and transplanting up to first fortnight of August.

Source - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com