The hail storm has dealt a severe blow to the vegetable crops in Bedo and Lapung blocks of Ranchi district,known as vegetable bowl of Jharkhand.
Bedo and Lapung which annually produce more than two lakh tonnes of potato,tomato,bringal,french bean,green chilly,peas,couliflower and cabbage annually,were so badly hit that almost all crops of these vegetables were damaged by the hail storm on Wednesday.
The worst affected villages were Nehalu ghat toli in Bedo and Sakarpur in Lapung. At Sakarpur,10 goats and as many as 35 poultry birds had died under the impact of the localised hail storm.In these villages,farmers and their families were spotted weeping.’We had invested all our savings in raising the crops.Now we are runied”,sobs Mahesh Mahato,a farmer at Lapung.
A group of activists led by Nawal Kishore Singh of Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch visited the affected villages and demanded that the district administration evaluate the loss suffered by farmers.
Strangely,none of the government officials had visited these villages.Singh said:”The damage was huge and the farmers had suffered loss of lakhs of rupees worth vegetables.’
