July accounted for 82 per cent of the total monsoon precipitation this year in East Burdwan — one of Bengal’s key agricultural districts.
The district received 497.1 mm of rainfall in July, against the monthly average of 273 mm. In 2015, East Burdwan recorded its highest July rainfall of 661.85 mm, while in 2017 it received 430 mm, according to officials of the district agriculture department.
The heavy downpours have caused serious disruption in the lower Damodar blocks such as Khandaghosh, Jamalpur and Raina, where large swathes of farmland are underwater during the peak paddy cultivation season. This has delayed the sowing of Aman paddy — the district’s main crop. East Burdwan had set a target of cultivating 3.68 lakh hectares this season, of which 70 per cent had been sown by Friday, said Mehmood Mondal, Agriculture Karmadhyaksha of the East Burdwan Zilla Parishad.
Around 10,415 hectares of Aman cultivation have been submerged.
In Raina’s Anguna village, a school was forced to suspend examinations yesterday after heavy flooding left all access roads inundated.