• News
  • India News
  • India to deploy 60 specialised sprayers from UK to control locust, first batch of 15 to arrive by June 11
This story is from May 28, 2020

India to deploy 60 specialised sprayers from UK to control locust, first batch of 15 to arrive by June 11

India to deploy 60 specialised sprayers from UK to control locust, first batch of 15 to arrive by June 11
A swarm of locusts seen near Jaipur
NEW DELHI: With drones already on board to control locust attack, India has now planned to deploy 60 specialised insecticide sprayers to kill the swarms before they invade newly sown Kharif crops in June-July. These sprayers are being procured from the UK.
An internal note of agriculture ministry, accessed by TOI, shows that India will get 15 such imported sprayers from UK by June 11, 20 more by June 25 and remaining 25 by July 9 to ramp up its ongoing operations to control locust.

“These sprayers will be deployed in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, depending on extent of swarms’ presence, where locust control exercise is currently being done,” said an official from the ministry which through its dedicated wing - Locust Warning Organisation (LWO) - has been coordinating those efforts with the states.
Officials in the ministry believe that these specialised sprayers from M/s Micron, UK may be quite effective to control the locust invasion.
These sprayers, having wide flow range and adjustable droplet size, can be used for any type of insecticide. These are also considered quite safe for users as the airstream from the sprayhead carries spray droplets away from the operator and ensures that they are safely deposited on the target.
So far, 43 districts in these five states have been covered with treatment of over 47,000 hectares of locust infested areas at 303 spots (mainly night resting places of the swarms). Rajasthan has highest number of districts (21) which got such interventions followed by Madhya Pradesh (18), Gujarat (2) and Punjab and Uttar Pradesh (one each). Currently, 50 tractor/vehicle mounted spray equipment and fire-tender vehicles are deployed at various locations for locust control.

“We can step up our operations further by deploying additional sprayers from UK from next month,” said the official.
As far as use of drone is concerned, the Rajasthan agriculture department on Wednesday deployed a drone to spray pesticides on swarms of locust at Samod village of Chomu tehsil in Jaipur district. The Union agriculture ministry will deploy more drones in difficult terrain where tractor or vehicle mounted sprayers can’t be used. The ministry had got required permission from central agencies including DGCA last week. Two firms have been finalised for aerial spraying of insecticides for effective control of locust over tall trees and inaccessible areas.
As on Wednesday, locust swarms were primarily active in Barmer, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Bikaner, Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Sikar and Jaipur districts in Rajasthan and Satna, Gwalior, Seedhi, Rajgarh, Baitul, Devas and Agar Malwa districts of Madhya Pradesh.
Officials in the LWO of the ministry said that there was hardly any possibility of locust swarm reaching Delhi at this juncture as they observed that the swarms were on Wednesday moving towards Dausa, Karauli and Dholpur in Rajasthan.
Latest update on locust situation shows that the new swarms will migrate to the summer breeding areas along both sides of the India-Pakistan border as well as to Sudan and West Africa. Monsoon rains would allow egg-laying to occur, leading to threat of bigger invasion which may be detrimental to the Kharif crops.
Usually, the locust swarms enter the Scheduled Desert Area of India through Pakistan for summer breeding in the month of June/July with the advent of monsoon. But this year, presence of locust hoppers was reported from April 11 in border districts of Rajasthan and Punjab.
“Incursion this year happened early because of presence of residual population of locust in Pakistan which the neighbouring country couldn’t control during last season,” said the official.
At present, 89 fire brigades for pesticide spray, 120 survey vehicles, 47 control vehicles with spray equipments and 810 tractor mounted sprayers have been deployed for effective locust control.
Meanwhile, high level committee of home ministry has approved central assistance, amounting to about Rs 68 crore, for Rajasthan from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) to help farmers who suffered the locust attack during 2019-20.
author
About the Author
Vishwa Mohan

Vishwa Mohan is Senior Editor at The Times of India. He writes on environment, climate change, agriculture, water resources and clean energy, tracking policy issues and climate diplomacy. He has been covering Parliament since 2003 to see how politics shaped up domestic policy and India’s position at global platform. Before switching over to explore sustainable development issues, Vishwa had covered internal security and investigative agencies for more than a decade.

End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA