MF AHMAD
Daltonganj, Dec 28: The leopard in the Garhwa district forest has created a piquant situation for the wheat growers. The wheat growers of Bhandarya, Ranka, Chiniya blocks, etc are harassed a lot due to the leopard roaming around in the jungles of these blocks.
The wheat growers are too scared to go to their standing crop of wheat for its irrigation fearing the leopard in and around there, as a result, the fog that has begun to set in, is damaging the yield of the wheat. Fog destroys standing crops if not wet properly repeated the farmers.
A wheat grower of Chiniya block said, “We do not know how to irrigate our wheat crop. Fog will damage it if we don’t wet it properly. We are missing dates for watering our wheat crop.”
Principal chief conservator of forest and chief wildlife warden Jharkhand Shashikar Samanta on being apprised of this crisis of the wheat growers in the Garhwa district said, “We urge the wheat growers to use some crackers and music system to play on while watering the wheat crop or any other vegetables just to keep at bay the leopard from them.”
Samanta said the farmers should go in a group and not in singles or twos.
The conservator of forest Garhwa Dileep Kumar Yadav IFS said, “We suggest our farmers water their crop in daylight instead of doing it after the sunset. Precaution is the best way to keep off the danger of the leopard which is on the prowl and has so far taken away two lives and an equal number of lives of the cattle.”
