Ggm residents beat drums, utensils to keep pests away

Gurugram District Administration had already issued a set of warnings

GURUGRAM: Residents of the "millennium city" woke up to large swarms of locusts on Saturday morning storming through the city and while most in the high-rise NCR city were busy shutting their doors and windows, many also shot videos of the skyline getting enveloped by the migratory pests in fascination.

Terrified by the sight of countless locusts, most residents began banging vessels and other utensils to ensure that the pests do not stop for rest on the balcony and the terraces of the houses of the residents.

The Gurugram District Administration had already issued a set of warnings after the short-horned species of grasshoppers were seen at the farms of Jhajjar and Rewari, two areas that are just fifty kilometres from Gurugram city.

By Saturday morning at around 9 am, large swarms of the species entered Fatehpur, on the outskirts of Gurugram and just in a span of one-anda-half hours they spread all around the major urban centres of Gurugram. Some of the areas where a large number of the locusts were spotted were Cyber Greens, DLF Phase-3, Gwal Pahari, MG Road, Nathupur, Sikanderpur and Sheetla Colony.

Residents highlighted that most of these locusts continued to hover around the green belt of Aravalli. The locust storm in Gurugram also took district administration officials here by surprise. Senior officials highlighted that the swarm was expected to travel from Rajasthan towards Uttar Pradesh but a sudden change in the wind direction had caused the locusts to enter Haryana through Mahendragarh and from thereon to Gurugram via Jhajjar and Rewari.

Even though the site of a large number of locusts flying was a scary sight for a large number of residents of Gurugram it was also a once in a lifetime opportunity to record such dramatic images.

“It was exciting and scary to see such a large number of locusts around my house. It seemed a layer of black smoke had engulfed the Gurugram sky. One locust could have been easily handled but countless numbers of species proved to be a major revelation highlighting the force of nature,” said Rohit Malik, resident of Heritage City Gurugram.

“You can restrict the entry of locusts that come in extremely large numbers. You can reduce their numbers by taking certain steps. In the night all these locusts become inactive and use fields and trees for taking rest. With the help of the fire department and the village department, it is this time when we began to spray pesticides so that a large number of these species die. We have been successful in doing so,” said JP Dalal, the Agriculture Minister of Haryana.

With the capacity to travel 100 to 150 km in a day, locusts can cause damage to farmers as they feed on the crops and plants. The Haryana Government has begun the process to assess the damage and will accordingly compensate the farmers, officials said. Earlier in May, Gurugram was expected to receive large swarms of the desert locusts as well but the winds had pushed them towards Madhya Pradesh. On Saturday, however, Haryana was not as lucky.