Adilabad: Loose and hanging electricity wires touching each other during high winds are leading to sparks and causing fire accidents in agricultural fields, destroying standing crops. Sparks are also emanating near electric transformers due to heavy load on them from agricultural farmers running their pumps.
Such fires burning standing crops have been reported in Pochera, Nigini, Boath, Devapur, Kajjarla, and Bheempur in Boath assembly constituency and Mediguda in the Adilabad assembly constituency during the last few days.
Five farmers suffered huge losses when their standing maize crop over 10 acres got burnt due to a fire following a short circuit on the outskirts of Pembi mandal headquarters in Nirmal district on April 28.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy responded to the Pembi incident and instructed officials to assess the loss and extend financial assistance to the farmers. The loss has been estimated at ₹7.56 lakh.
Khanapur MLA Vedma Bojju visited the fields of Pembi farmers and assured to do justice to the farmers. He said proposals have been sent to the state government for paying compensation to the farmers.
In another incident, jowar and maize crops over 90 acres belonging to around 40 farmers suffered destruction in a fire that started after sparks emanated from hanging wires at Kanigutta village in Boath mandal on Sunday. Fire-fighters rushed to the spot, but the crops had totally burnt by that time.
Farmers are blaming the electricity staff for negligence in tightening the loose and hanging wires and straightening up bent poles even after complaints have been lodged with them. Boath MLA Anil Jadhav has also made a complaint in this regard.
Gondla Swamy and Gondla Venkataramana of Pochera village have suffered huge losses after fire reduced their entire standing crop to ashes when overhead electricity wires touched each other due to high winds. The plastic pipelines laid in the field also got burnt in the fire. In a similar incident, Singam Ramana lost his jowar crop over six acres in Boath.
Likewise, Bheema Mahender of Kanigutta village in Boath mandal regretted that his jowar and maize crops got burnt, causing him a loss of ₹2 lakh. The plastic pipelines that got burnt had been worth ₹50,000.
Officials say some of the fire incidents are due to some farmers burning residues of maize and jowar crop instead of getting them removed by paying labourers. Farmer Chatla Nagesh suffered burns on his legs while trying to control a fire that broke out due to this reason in Boath.Some farmers wantonly burn the residue plants in their fields as they believe the residual ash acts like a natural fertiliser. In certain instances, these fires spread to the neighbouring fields and burn them down.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
