Locusts move towards Maharashtra's Gondia district after attacking fields in neighboring Bhandara

As swarms of locusts have entered the country, the central government is trying to control the situation using helicopters to tame the locusts, as the short-horned grasshopper moved towards Maharashtra’s Gondia district after attacking some fields in neighbouring Bhandara.

In Delhi, the state's forest department announced that it is considering covering the saplings in its nurseries with polythene to protect them against the desert locust attack. In the last few weeks, swarms have moved from Rajasthan to newer areas in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, UP, Maharashtra and Punjab. The central government so far has set up 11 control centres across the nation to monitor the movement of locusts.

The government is also touted to provide additional financial assistance to states in order to control the menace. At the moment it has sanctioned nearly Rs 19 crore to states such as Rajasthan and Gujarat to purchase tractor-mounted sprayers, chemicals and pesticides. As per officials, standing crop in over 4,000 hectares in Sri Ganganagar and 100 hectares in Nagaur has been destroyed. Rajasthan has been the worst hit with the state government officials estimating that around 90,000 hectares in 20 districts have been affected due to the locust attack. In Sonbhadra, a swarm of locusts reached Bemauri village in Ghorawal tehsil on Wednesday where a team of the Agriculture Department sprayed chemicals until late night, killing a large number of insects.

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath had issued directions to district magistrates of Jhansi, Lalitpur, Agra, Mathura, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Mahoba, Banda, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, Etawah and Kanpur Dehat to take all necessary measures to deal with the situation. At the state-level, teams have already been formed and control rooms established to track the movement of locusts.

India is battling the worst desert locust outbreak in recent times. The crop-destroying swarms first attacked Rajasthan and have now spread to Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.