Tidal surge following heavy rainfall in late April has inundated about 600 hectares of paddy fields in Chandar Beel of Gopalganj.
Chandar Beel is one of the major water bodies in the region encompassing parts of Gopalganj Sadar, Kashiani and Moksudpur upazilas.
About 8,000 hectares of land in Chandar Beel were cultivated with paddy this season.
Apart from the damages already done to the crop in many of those fields, the growers are now finding it hard to harvest whatever that is left.
Day-labourers are not interested to cut the paddy as the fields still remain under water. Run-down roads in the area have also led to the loss of harvest during transportation.
Nitya Bala, a farmer from Kumria village of Chandar Beel area, told the Dhaka Tribune that the day-labourers had left the area after the flooding of the paddy fields.
“The labourers do not want to cut the paddy from the inundated fields. Almost half of the crops have been rotting due to the scarcity of labourers,” he said.
Tapan Boiragi of Chakkona village said that the local roads were in a bad shape and a large portion of whatever they had managed to harvest had been lost during transportation.
Sameer Kumar Goshwami, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension's Gopalganj office, said that paddy worth Tk3 crore had been damaged because of water stagnation after four days of heavy rainfall from April 21-25.
The tidal surge on May 1 had worsened the situation, he told the Dhaka Tribune Thursday.
The Gopalganj DAE has already informed the higher authorities about the situation, but is yet to get allocation of foodgrains and cash assistance for the affected people.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
