BANKI: As the water recedes from Charigharia village, Sisir Parida struggles to come to terms with the trail of devastation that the high floods in Mahanadi have left behind. The stretch of land that was lush green and brimming with vegetable produce only a week back has been rendered brown, layered with feet high mud and sand silt. Only the dry stalks of dead plants remain bearing testimony to the ravages of the floods this year. And Parida has been left ruing his fate. “All the standing auberjine and local beans crop over 1.5 acre of land have been washed away along with paddy over another two acre. I had got Rs. 25,000 loan for the crops. The vegetable produce would have got me Rs. 2 lakh this season but now everything is lost”, he says. A few kilometres away at Nishitpur, Purna Jena embodies the same predicament. He had grown lady’s finger, beans, bitter gourd (kalara) and pear gourd (potal) over two acres, all of which has been swept away in the ravaging floods. Across Banki, similar tales of loss abound. As almost the bulk of the over 1500 population of Karabara still shelter under polythene tents on the embankment, Abhaduta casts a forlorn look at a patch of land that is emerging from the shallows of the receding Mahanadi. He had grown cauliflower on one acre. “The crop would have been ready during the holy Kartik month in November. The produce would have brought me good returns, most of the people in the State turn vegetarian during the time, “ he laments. The block, which is regarded as the vegetable garden of the district, has sustained severe setback in terms of vegetable produce this season. The vegetable areas are primarily located at the fertile land adjacent on in close vicinity of the Mahanadi river. The flood fury, resultantly, has hit this very aspect first. According to official estimates, more than 1000 hectares of vegetable cultivated land have been damaged in the floods in Banki. The loss in terms of produce could run into several crores of rupees as a joint verification by the Agriculture and other allied departments like Horticulture has gone underway in the worst affected pocket of the district. The impact of the floods on agriculture across the State is being already felt in the market. As vegetable prices have hit the roof, worse is on the way, the market experts have warned. More than 30 percent of the vegetables sold at Chhatra Bazaar, the largest vegetable mandi of the State, come from Banki region. “With supply cut-off due to flood damage, a scarcity situation would arise pushing the prices of vegetables further upwards”, secretary of Chhatra Bazaar Debendra Sahoo said.
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