Flood damages boro in huge areas of greater Sylhet
Farmers in two Kishoreganj upazilas using unripe crops as fodder
Farmers carrying damaged boro plants in boats after cutting it from their inundated field in a haor area of Itna upazila under Kishoreganj district as flash floods caused massive damage to the crop only a few days before ripening.Photo: STAR
Flash flood has damaged boro crops on around two lakh hectares of land in greater Sylhet region and Kishoreganj district. About three lakh farmers have been directly affected in Sylhet region as early flooding caused by heavy downpour and rolling of water from the hills across the border in India destroyed paddy on 1.52 lakh hectares of land, said our staff correspondent quoting officials of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE). Water Development Board (WDB) authorities' failure to protect the embankments due to alleged corruption also added to the situation, sources said. Agriculture officials said the loss would stand at Tk 1,318 crore while local sources claimed that about 10 lakh tonnes of paddy worth Tk 1700 crore has been lost by the calamity. Meantime, Sunamganj WDB executive engineer Abdul Hekim has been put under suspension for negligence in saving embankments. A high level team from the WDB will investigate the irregularities, sources said. Boro was cultivated on 4.27 lakh hectares of land in Sylhet, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar and Habiganj districts this year but floods badly affected crops on 1.52 lakh hectares, causing loss of 7.75 lakh tonnes of crops worth Tk 1,318 crore, DAE sources said. The affected farmers somehow managed to harvest a portion of their unripe paddy from the inundated croplands. In worst affected Sunamganj district, boro crops on 1,03,045 hectares of land out of a total 1,93,000 hectares has been lost, agriculture officials said. The production loss has been primarily estimated at 5.27 lakh tonnes worth Tk 896 crore. In Sylhet district, the crop loss has been estimated at 2.08 lakh tonnes of paddy worth Tk 354 crore as 40,700 hectares of boro lands out of the total 75,800 hectares went under water. In Moulvibazar, 37,000 tonnes of boro (worth Tk 63.34 crore) on 7,285 hectares of land has been damaged while the total boro filed in the district this year is 49,150 hectares. In Habiganj, 1.09 lakh hectares were used for boro paddy this year. Of that, 580 hectares had been damaged causing production loss of 2967 tonnes of paddy worth Tk 5.04 crore. A Correspondent reports from Kishoreganj: Around 30 thousand hectares of boro paddy has gone under water due to flooding in Itna and Mithamoin upazilas of Kishoreganj district in last few days. With deterioration of flood situation in the haor areas of the district due to onrush of hill water, farmers are getting their unripe paddy cut in exchange of lion's share of the crop to the labourers. Any visitor in the area will now see hundreds of women and children harvesting unripe paddy to feed their cows. Frustrated paddy farmers are now worried about paying their debt that they took to meet up the cultivation cost, said farmers Ibrahim of Wara and Haji Abul Kashem of Joishiddi in Itna upazila. Day labourers are demanding Tk 500-600 a day for harvesting paddy and boat owners take Tk 1000 to 1500 a day to carry 100 to 200 hundred maunds of paddy. Public representatives and agriculture officials said two-thirds of Itna upazila and half of Mithamoin upazila has already gone under water while several embankments have collapsed.
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