A high-level meeting to review Locust Control Operations

Union Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister has held a high-level meeting with Ministers of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Parshottam Rupala, and Shri Kailash Choudhary and Secretary (DAC&FW) and Sanjay Agarwal to review the Locust Control Operations.

The government is focused to deal dealing urgently with the Locustus attack in the country.

The Centre has issued Advisory to the affected States and an Advisory has been issued.

GoI has procured 15 sprayers, which will start arriving from Britain in the next 15 days. Centre has also decided to procure 45 more sprayers.

For effective control of locusts, drones will be used to spray pesticides on tall trees and inaccessible places. It has been planned that the helicopters will be deployed for aerial spray.

A committee led by the Additional Secretary of the Department has been constituted by GoI to procure services and goods for spraying insecticides through drones and airplanes.

A swarm of locusts entered from the Indo-Pak border areas. Locusts have been reported in Jodhpur, Nagaur, Bikaner, Suratgarh, Dausa, Barmer, districts of Rajasthan, Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh state and Rewa, Morena, Betul, Khandwa districts of Madhya Pradesh and Nagpur and Amravati districts of Maharashtra.

The Rajasthan government has deployed 778 tractors and 50 fire brigade vehicles, Madhya Pradesh has deployed 72 tractors and 38 fire brigade vehicles, Uttar Pradesh state government has deployed 6 tractors and Punjab has, so far, deployed 50 tractors and 6 fire brigade vehicles for locust control.