- Swarms of locusts entered Sirsa, Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri, and Mahendragarh districts of Haryana.
- On Saturday, officials took necessary steps toward the locusts off, the agriculture department deployed fire tenders filled with chemicals and tractor-mounted spray guns to kill the insects.
Alarmed at the invasion of the locusts, which settled on trees, rooftops and plants, many residents of Gurgaon shared videos from their high-rise perches.
Locusts, popularly known as ‘Tiddi Dal’, are short-horned grasshoppers with highly migratory habits and voracious feeding behaviour.
The Haryana Government has issued a high alert after a swarm of locusts entered Rewari and Gurugram districts, with officials on Saturday asserting that all necessary measures have been taken, including deploying tractor-mounted spraying facilities.
“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,” Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, Sanjeev Kaushal told PTI.
“Heavy insecticide spray was done during the night and early morning. About 35 per cent of the swarm was destroyed, but the rest which was still uge in number took off from there and crossed Jhajjar district and then got on to Gurgaon,” he said.
To take stock of the situation, state Agriculture Minister J P Dalal visited Rewari and enquired from villagers and officials about the damage caused by locusts.
In many villages where locusts were spotted, the farmers beat ‘thalis’ (plates) and other utensils 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 while supervision teams had been formed to tackle the situation.
Village-level WhatsApp groups too had been formed to keep the farmers informed, the officials said.
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