Ballari: The tradition of thrashing paddy crops on roads to extract rice has caused much inconvenience to drivers on state highways in Gangavati and surrounding taluks of Koppal and Raichur districts.
As the harvesting season reached its peak, farmers are using nearby roads to thrash harvested paddy crop in order to obtain the grains.
Several stretches of busy roads on the banks of the river Tungabhadra from Kampli, Siruguppa in Ballari district, Gangavati,Karatagi, Kanakagiri, Sindhanur in Koppal district and also the paddy fields situated on the banks of the river Krishna in Manvi, Maski,Lingasgur in Raichur district are being used as paddy thrashing centres.
Apart from paddy, farmers use roads to thrash crops of jowar and pear millet here. They spread straws on roads, forcing vehicles to flatten them. In some places, farmers heap straws on the roadside, too, forcing drivers to inch their vehicles forward.
Basavaraj Surappa, a driver from Hosapete, whose car was stranded near Gangavati recently because of this problem of harvested crops spread on the road. He said drivers must be extra-cautious while driving down these important roads.
Farmers, however, said they had no option except to use the road for thrashing crops because of lack of adequate space to dry harvested crops near paddy fields.
“This practice also reduced wages to a great extent, as grains are automatically segregated from crops when vehicles pass by,” said farmer Surya Rao of Basavapatna in Gangavati. Officials in agricultural department said the state government had created more than 14 drying yards in the last two years under rural development scheme and efforts would be taken to increase the number of common thrashing centres in future.
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