KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Oct 20: A herd of wild elephants has destroyed a vast area of paddy crops at a village under Chandil Thana area in the adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district, causing the villagers to turn resentful.
The elephant herd has entered into the Jugilang village having strayed into the human habitat and has destroyed standing paddy crops spread over 20 acres of agricultural land on Friday.
Comprised of 13 elephants, including calves, the herd invaded the paddy crops in the wee hours today and kept on rampaging there till the morning.
The herd which seems to have come from Bengal grazed a considerable amount of the paddy crops besides trampling the crops, thus turning the hope of a good harvest into despair.
The paddy fields that have been damaged belong to Haradhan Gope, Biren Gope, Mahadev Gope, Mahavir Gope, Satrugna Gope and Bharat Gope, all residents of Jugilang village.
“We had grown the paddy crops with great difficulties as there is no proper irrigation system. But when the time of harvesting came, the crops were destroyed by the elephants, ” said one of the villagers Biren Gope while talking to lagatar24.com.
Biren Gope pointed out he knows the forest department will compensate for the loss of crops, but the amount of compensation will hardly meet the extent of the crop loss.
Another villager, Mahadev Gope observed that had the forest department developed a system of monitoring the movement of the wild elephants and made arrangements to dry away the herd, then so many crops would not have been damaged.
