Swarms of locusts reach Gurgaon via Rewari, covers skyline of millennium city: Officials

Flying from Rajasthan, the swarms of locusts entered Rewari district via Mahendragarh and settled in various villages of Jatusana and Khol blocks of the district on Friday evening, said officials. On Saturday, they headed towards Jhajjar and entered Gurgaon district with insects covering the skyline in parts of the millennium city, said officials.

A huge swarm of locusts reached Rewari in Haryana with parts of it settling overnight in the district and the remaining heading towards Gurgaon via Jhajjahr, covering the skyline of the millennium city and prompting officials to take necessary actions to ward off the threat. Flying from Rajasthan, the swarms of locusts entered Rewari district via Mahendragarh and settled in various villages of Jatusana and Khol blocks of the district on Friday evening, said officials.

On Saturday, they headed towards Jhajjar and entered Gurgaon district with insects covering the skyline in parts of the millennium city, said officials. Alarmed at the invasion by locusts, which settled on trees, rooftops and plants, many residents of Gurgaon shared videos of the insects’ high-rise perches. At many places in Gurgaon, residents kept their windows closed to prevent the insects from entering homes with the swarm stated to be 8 km long and 5 km wide.

Though locusts did enter some parts of Gurgaon district, they scattered away from there owing to a change in the wind direction, said officials, adding there were no reports of any damage to crops or vegetation in Gurgaon district. Amid reports that insects could enter Rewari district, the Gurgaon administration had sounded an alert and led by Deputy Commissioner Amit Khatri, an awareness campaign was conducted in villages of the district about prevention measures. An advisory was issued by the Gurgaon district administration to residents of the district on Friday asking them to remain on watch and keep doors and windows of their homes closed as a precautionary measure.

Giving details about locusts’ entry to Rewari on Friday evening, Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, Sanjeev Kaushal told PTI, "It was a huge swarm of 5 km in length and 2 km in width which passed through Mahendragarh and settled down in Rewari. In the night, this swarm was near Jatusana block.” "Insecticides were sprayed heavily during the night and early morning. About 35 per cent of the swarm was destroyed, but the rest which was still huge in number took off from there and crossed Jhajjar district and reached Gurgaon," he said. Earlier in the day, Kaushal said according to the inputs he had received from the central government, "it is likely that from the wind velocity and direction, it (the locust swarm) will cross Palwal district and may then head towards Uttar Pradesh".

About the measures taken by the Haryana government, he said, "We are fully alert, our districts have been alerted. We have sufficient quantities of insecticides stored there. We have tractor-mounted spray guns and they were deployed wherever necessary." Officials said when locusts entered Rewari district, they settled on trees and standing crops like cotton and bajra, which had been recently planted. To take stock of the situation, state Agriculture Minister J P Dalal visited Rewari and assured farmers that assessment would be made about the damage caused to crops in the district.

About Rewari district, Dalal said 15 fire tenders, besides several tractor-mounted spray facilities, were pressed into service during a night-long operation, which was carried out and personally monitored by Deputy Commissioner Yashendra Singh. Dalal said even experts from the central government who visited Rewari to take stock of the situation had appreciated the timely measures taken by the district administration.

Replying to a question, he said while the locusts are air-borne there was not much that could be done and measures can be taken only after they settle down on trees and in fields. In many villages where locusts were spotted, the farmers beat 'thalis' (plates) and other utensils while some also burst firecrackers in a bid to ward off the insects away while local administration deployed tractor-mounted spray facilities.

Officials from the agriculture and other departments were keeping a close watch on the situation while supervision teams had been formed to tackle the situation. Village-level WhatsApp groups too had been formed to keep farmers informed, the officials said.

Meanwhile, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that the government has completely failed to stop the locust attack even when it knew about such a possibility for a long time, but made no preparations for the same. “If steps were taken to deal with the locust attack in time, the farmers could have been saved from major losses. But the government, despite having the knowledge, did nothing and left farmers alone to defend their fields and crops,” the Congress leader said in a statement, asking the government to immediately assess the loss to crops. Notably, Haryana had issued a high alert a month ago too after locust swarms had attacked crops in neighbouring Rajasthan and a few other states, but the insects luckily had moved away from the state.

Locusts, popularly known as ''tiddi dal'', are short-horned grasshoppers with highly migratory habits and voracious feeding behaviour..