Crops worth Rs 400 cr damaged due to rains: Minister

Minister for Social Welfare Dola Bala Veeranjaneya Swamy has said that crops worth up to Rs 400 crore have been damaged due to incessant rains in Prakasam district.
The Minister, accompanied by Collector A Thameem Ansariya and other officers, visited some of the rain-affected agriculture fields at Kondayapalem village in Podili mandal, at  Ramabhadrapuram and Madhavaram villages in Talluru mandal on Saturday. The Minister and Collector saw the damaged jowar, paddy and other crops. They interacted with the farmers and assured them to take steps to ensure that input subsidy and crop loss compensation were paid at the earliest.
Later talking to the media, the Minister revealed that crops including horticulture worth Rs 300 to Rs 400 crore were damaged in the district due to incessant rains which occurred recently due to depression.
He noted that crops including paddy and jowar were damaged while horticulture crops including papaya, tobacco and black gram were also damaged due to heavy rains. He said that the incessant rain badly affected 17 mandals in the district.
Collector Thameem Ansariya said that crops in 4,749 hectares were damaged due to the recent heavy rains and 3231 farmers incurred crop loss.  She said that horticulture crops were damaged in 560 hectares. Preliminary reports on crop loss had already been sent to the Government, she stated.
MLA Kandula Narayana Reddy said that crops were damaged in Markapur constituency in Podili, Konakanamitla, Tarlupadu and Markapuram mandals.
The tobacco and jowar farmers were the worst affected as they incurred huge crop losses, the MLA lamented. He appealed to the Minister and Collector to take steps to disburse crop loss compensation and input subsidy to the affected farmers the earliest. RDOs and Agriculture officers were among those who accompanied the Minister.