Director Agriculture Kashmir undertakes assessment of damage by hailstorm

SRINAGAR, MAY 07 (RNA) : The Director Agriculture Kashmir, Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal has pressed into service its monitoring teams to make on spot assessment of damage caused to vegetables, fodder crops, mustard crops by the recent hailstorm in specific packets of Baramulla, Srinagar, Pulwama and Shopian districts of the valley. In this connection, the Director along with Deputy Director Agriculture Planning Mohammad Younis Chowdhary, Divisional Seed Certification Officer and other officers of the Department made an extensive visit to Fakir Gujree, Dhara, Syed Pora and some other areas where heavy damage was noticed to the agriculture crop in the farmers’ fields. A number of deputations of farmers also met the Director and reported the damage to vegetables, mustard and other crops. Talking to the farmers, the Director said the Department would take all the necessary steps to mitigate the damage caused by the hailstorm to the agriculture crops. He asked the concerned officers to spare 20 thousand seedlings of different vegetable crops for the farmers of affected areas as an immediate mitigation step. Instructions were issued by the Director to field officers to immediately make a detailed assessment of the losses and the concerned chief Agriculture officers have been advised to furnish the crop wise and area wise damage reports within three days so that the issue is taken up with the concerned authorities of Government for consideration of affected areas as hit by the natural calamity. Later, the Director Agriculture briefed the Divisional Administration regarding the mitigation steps taken by the Department for the hailstorm affected areas.