New Delhi / Nagpur: Civic workers sprayed gallons of insecticide and farmers beat ‘thalis’ and played loud music in several areas of Rajasthan, MP, Maharashtra and UP to drive away swarms of locusts amid their worst invasion in years, reports said.
Authorities in Delhi, Haryana, Himachal, Telangana and Karnataka too sounded alerts on Thursday to the possibility of locusts entering their territories even as UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned the pests could reach as far east as Bihar and Odisha in the coming weeks.
“We are ready. Seven districts have been put on high alert,” Sanjeev Kaushal, Additional Chief Secretary at Haryana’s Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department told PTI. Karnataka set up a panel to examine the threat while saying the chances of the insects flying into the state are remote.
About 90,000 hectares in 20 Rajasthan districts are affected by the locust attack, Om Prakash, Commissioner at the state's Agriculture Department, said Thursday.
Swarms moved from Sri Ganganagar, Nagaur, Jaipur, Dausa, Karauli and Swai Madhopur districts towards UP and MP, the official said.
He said the department carried out locust control operations over 67,000 hectares in Rajasthan.
In UP, agriculture department workers targeted swarms in Moth and Garautha areas of Jhansi, and in Sonbhadra district overnight, according to Kamal Katiyar Deputy Director, Agriculture.
In Sonbhadra, a swarm Wednesday reached Bemauri village in Ghorawal tehsil, where a team from the Agriculture Dept sprayed chemicals till late night, killing a large number of insects.
There was little damage as there are no standing crops right now, District Agriculture Officer Piyush Rai said. Several other UP districts remain on alert.
Sirens scare away locusts in Panna
Swarms of locusts are being scared away by the administration in Panna, MP, using police sirens on Wednesday. The insects were seen in Panna Tiger Reserve where they attacked wild plants and trees. Suman, Agri Officer, Panna said the method has been adopted to save the crops. “This saved loss of agri crops here. The way to prevent them from damaging crops is to create loud noises or to spray insecticides,” he said.
