TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION: The damaged papaya orchard at Kandukuru village in Anantapur district.

ANANTAPUR: Heavy winds and light rain in most parts of the district on Sunday evening and night have provided respite to the people from the scorching weather. But, it snatched the smiles from faces of some farmers whose standing crops were damaged in the unexpected rain.

A welcome change in weather from Saturday evening has, in fact, provided great relief to the people in the district from soaring temperatures. It continues to remain pleasant through Monday.

Power cut lifted

It has also been a blessing to the people in urban areas (municipal towns), where four-hour power cut in two spells has been in force for about a month now, as the power cut was reduced on Sunday and was not imposed at all on Monday.

However, farmers in some areas have suffered damage to their horticulture crops, particularly to papaya and banana, paddy and sunflower being cultivated under borewells. Farmers suffered damage to paddy in a few villages in the Gorantla area.

Papaya in five acres belonging to one Laxmi Reddy in Kadukur village in Anantapur rural mandal was badly damaged due to heavy wind and rain. Of the 5,000 one-year-old fruit-bearing plants, about 3,000 were either uprooted or floored and the remaining standing plants suffered partial damage like broken buds and loss of fruit.

The farmer has sunk 11 borewells to raise the orchard, of which only three have water now. The farmer's loss is estimated to be about Rs. 3 lakhs as watering the remaining plants would be a difficult task now.

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