BAHAWALPUR: The swarms of locusts that threaten crops and vegetation in Bahawalpur division have entered the parts of Cholistan from the Indian side of the desert -- Rajasthan.

This was claimed by Punjab Agriculture Department Director Jamshed Khalid Sidhu while talking to Dawn here on Sunday.

The director maintained that these swarms of locusts posed no threat inside Cholistan as a massive anti-locust operation was being carried out in the desert areas under the government’s instructions.

He claimed that before these swarms could move forward to the green areas bordering the desert and harm standing crops cultivated there, the agriculture department mobile teams were destroying these voracious insects.

These teams, along with the vehicles and pesticides provided by the federal plant protection department were spraying and destroying locusts, he added.

The director claimed that the cultivated areas were safe from the locusts plague also because these were situated far away from the Pakistan-India border.

He claimed that due to the anti-locusts operation the swarms would either retreat back to Indian side or be destroyed by mobile teams spraying pesticides there.

Mr Sindhu said the anti-locusts operation would continue round the clock till the threat subsided.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Shozeb Saeed said the locusts spotted in parts of Cholistan had entered Pakistan’s territory near the Bijnot (about 80km away from Bahawalpur) point at the border, adding there was no need to panic as “we are ready to destroy them with the ample stocks of pesticides.”

The DC said the district administration, along with the Cholistan Development Authority (CDA) and forests and wildlife department, was vigilant and keenly monitoring the locusts swarms movement to ensure these insects could not move towards the cultivated areas near the desert boundaries.

The locusts swarms were first spotted in Lasbela district of Balochistan and then in parts of border areas of Umerkot and Mithi in Sindh.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2019