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Orissa flood damages rice crop, spares Nalco

Torrential rains and floods have badly damaged a large part of the rice crop in Orissa but have spared the country's second-largest aluminium firm, officials said on Friday.

"Our operations are not affected," P. Parvathisem, chairman of National Aluminium Co, said.

The floods, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Orissa and upstream areas in neighbouring states, also forced authorities to release water from the massive Hirakud dam, the longest in the world.

The floods have washed away 4,000 houses, damaged 18,000 homes and affected six million people in the state, which was savaged by a cyclone two years ago.

Orissa normally produces around five million tonnes of rice each year.

The rice crop on the coast, where about 40 per cent of the state's rice is grown, were damaged, an official of the Central Rice Research Institute of the union agriculture ministry said.

"According to the available information, about 355,000 hectares of crop area in the state has been damaged," an official of the National Disaster Management cell of the union agriculture ministry said from Delhi.

Orissa grows about 10 per cent of the 45 million hectares under rice in the country, and contributes 5.8 per cent of the total annual production of 86 million tonnes.

Rice is the main winter-harvest crop of the state.

Ved Prakash Aggarwal, Orissa state minister for food supplies and consumer welfare, said rice crop worth Rs 5 billion were probably damaged.

"Crop survival chances are hardly five to 10 per cent in these areas," the CRRI official said, adding farmers would have to replant the crop.

Sowing in low-lying coastal Orissa was completed in June.

Only 10-20 per cent of the rest of the rice growing areas of the state had been sowed, he said.

"These areas are drought-prone and rice sowing is normally completed by mid-August," the CRRI official said, adding that this season, there has been adequate rainfall.

Monsoon rains in Orissa have been unusually heavy this year. The state received 822 mm of rain between June 1 and July 18, almost double the normal level for the period.

"The state is facing a huge crisis. It will be the worst-ever flooding in the history of the state," special relief commissioner H K Panda said.

Nalco operations normal

Nalco continued its production activities and transportation of raw materials and finished goods despite the floods.

The state-run firm operates an 800,000-tonnes-a-year alumina plant at the mineral-rich town of Damanjodi and an aluminium smelter with 230,000 tonnes-per-annum production capacity at Angul, both in Orissa.

A senior Nalco official said Damanjodi is a hilly area and was not flooded. The Angul smelter was also operating as usual.

But the firm could face a problem in transporting goods if the national highways were closed off, he said. "Till today, the highways passing through Orissa have not been closed."

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