Chandigarh, April 19, (OZ News Desk) Heavy rain and hailstorm in Punjab today caused damage to crops in ten districts as harvesting is in full swing. There are also reports of crops being uprooted due to strong winds and harvesting work coming to a sudden halt. Last year too, there was rain and storm in Punjab on the day of harvest. Exactly one year later, hailstorm has ruined the crops of the farmers. Today 3.61 lakh metric tonnes of wheat reached the procurement centers and the crops lying at hundreds of procurement centers got drenched. Apart from Punjab and Haryana, the weather pattern suddenly changed in Chandigarh today and there was heavy rain accompanied by thunder and lightning. The clouds cleared this afternoon. The Meteorological Department has predicted rain in many districts of Punjab for the next two days. It was cloudy since the previous day and due to fear of the weather, farmers had speeded up harvesting, due to which the amount of moisture in the crop was also high. Today strong winds blew at a speed of 30-40 km per hour. A large number of trees have fallen on the main roads and canals in Punjab. Due to the storm, trees fell on two vehicles on Patiala-Sirhind road and road traffic was blocked for some time. About a dozen electric poles fell on a private bus and tractor on Jaito Kotkapura Road. Due to rain, the demand for electricity has reduced today, whereas recently the demand for electricity had touched 8500 MW. Heavy and light hailstorm occurred in Amritsar, Bathinda, Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Jalandhar, Mansa, Ludhiana, Moga, Sangrur and Patiala districts of Punjab. Similarly, there has been rain in Barnala, Firozpur, Kapurthala and Rupnagar also. Fazilka, Tarn Taran, Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur and Pathankot districts were spared from rain today. In Moga district, hailstorm may cause loss of more than 25 percent yield, while in Bathinda district, 15 percent yield may be affected. Crops have also been damaged due to hailstorm in Rajpura area. While the harvesting work will be delayed for a few days due to rain and hailstorm, the cost of harvesting the sown crops will also increase. Farmers are beginning to fear that their wheat production will be affected. 132 lakh metric tonnes of crop was expected to arrive in the markets of Punjab and 161 lakh metric tonnes of production was expected. The procurement work in the mandis was already going on at a slow pace and now the bumper crop of rain can create problems for the farmers in the mandis. There has been a heavy storm in Nabha, Bhadson and Amloh areas. Hundreds of villages in Firozpur and Moga district have been hit by hail. There are reports of hailstorm in dozens of villages including Talwandi Malik village of Samana area. There has been heavy rain in Sangrur district and hailstorm at many places in Barnala district. There has been a storm in Phagwara, while the crops in the market of Singhewala village in Moga have been harvested and are soaked. There is cheering in Jagdev Kalan and other villages of Amritsar. There has been hailstorm in the villages of Amargarh of Malerkotla. The crops have become drenched in the procurement center of Mudki village of Firozpur. Maize crop has also been affected in Kapurthala district. Today when Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was giving a speech in Fatehgarh Sahib district, a strong storm came.
