LOCUSTS TURN GREEN TREES BROWN
Trees covered with locusts in MP’S Malwa region. More such swarms, which have reached as far as Maharashtra, are moving towards the state and are expected to damage vegetation.
NEW DELHI: Locust swarms were likely to move from Rajasthan’s Dausa to Dholpur and Morena in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday and damage all kinds of vegetation and not only standing crop, the Locust Warning Organisation (LWO) said while calling a reported alert that they were headed towards Delhi incorrect.
Small swarms of the species of grasshoppers have also reached as far as Vidarbha, other parts of Maharashtra as well as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. “The alert that they are headed towards Delhi on Wednesday is incorrect. They are headed towards Morena for now,” said LWO’S directorate of plant protection quarantine & storage deputy director, KL Gurjar.
Desert locusts have affected around 50 districts in the counhave try spreading for Rajasthan in west to Uttar Pradesh in east, Haryana in north and Maharashtra in south. In fact, UP is getting locust swarms from two directions --- in east from Rajasthan and in south from Madhya Pradesh. According to officials in UP and Madhya Pradesh, at least 10 each districts in these two states have seen locust attacks.
LWO has deployed drones and 50 teams to track the swarms in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Fire brigades are also being deployed depending on the size and location of the swarms. “We controlled them over 47,000 ha of land in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The swarms, which have reached Maharashtra, are small. We did not have any standing crop there but they can destroy all kinds of vegetation,” said Gurjar. The teams are spraying organophosphate insecticides, malathion 96 and chlorpyrifos.
LWO said wind patterns have pushed the main branch of the desert locust towards Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra from Rajasthan and threaten crops like cotton, pulses and maize. “Current winds patterns will propel the pests towards newer parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, sparing Delhi for now,” an official of the top locust monitoring wing of the agriculture ministry said. “For the next two days, moderate winds could blow them into parts of eastern Madhya Pradesh and Vidharbha of Maharashtra, as winds are northwesterly,” Mahesh Palawat, vice-president, meteorology, of Skymet, a private forecaster, said. Delhi could be spared for another four days.
Winds after two days will take the opposite direction, travelling from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh towards Rajasthan, Palawat said. A cyclonic formation over Rajasthan thereafter may change winds patterns towards Delhi, he said.
Rajasthan is the worst-hit state by the swarms and they overran Jaipur on Monday. The Centre has released aid worth ~68.65 crore to compensate farmers for last year’s pest attack.
The compensation under the National Disaster Relief Fund was cleared by a high-level committee headed by Union home minister Amit Shah, according to a document dated May 23 reviewed by HT.