Farmers here are distraught as unseasonal rain has destroyed their paddy crops and winter-grown vegetables such as cauliflower and cabbage.

If the weather persists, this could trigger a crisis affecting agricultural activities.

The depression over the Bay of Bengal off the Andhra Pradesh coast has caused unseasonal rainfall across the coastal belt for the last two days, bringing a lot of anxiety to the farmers.

What has made the matter worse is that the farmers cannot find a way to bring in the harvested paddy from the fields with rain. This does not augur well for the farmer who had worked overtime in the hope of a good harvest.

“We failed to bring the paddy from the field that we harvested. All our paddy crops have gone. The rain plays spoilsport,” said Kuna Mallick, 45, a farmer from Sankhua village under Govindpur police station in Cuttack district.

Kuna said: “I used to cultivate two acres of my land and another five acres which I have taken on rent. This year, the harvest is good. We are all quite happy. But the sudden spell of rain has brought disaster. We are ruined.”

After receiving large-scale complaints from the farmers, the Odisha government assured them of compensation owing to a sudden spell of rain.

Minister of cooperation, handloom and textiles Pradeep Bal Samant said: “The state government will compensate farmers if the paddy is affected. There has been a rain report across the state because of the depression.”

With paddy procurement at a standstill across Odisha, the state government has made special arrangements to cover the crops in the mandis. “The possibility of paddy getting wet at mandi is minimal,” the minister said, assuring that the paddy from the farmers will be procured at mandi after drying up when the rain subsides.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Saturday said the current depression over the Bay of Bengal is likely to weaken gradually in the next 12 hours and move slowly east-northeastwards, maintaining its intensity as a depression.

“The depression over west-central Bay of Bengal off Andhra Pradesh coast moved east-north-eastwards with the speed of 12kmph during the past six hours and lay centred at about 430km south-southeast of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 590km south- of Gopalpur (Odisha). The system is likely to move slowly east-north-eastwards maintaining its intensity as a depression for the next 12 hours and weaken gradually thereafter over the sea,” the IMD said.

It added: “Under its impact, light to moderate rainfall has occurred at many places over the districts of Odisha with heavy rainfall at one or two places over the districts of Nayagarh, Khurda, Puri, Jagatsingpur and Ganjam of coastal Odisha.”

Ranpur in Nayagarh district has recorded the highest rainfall of 11cm.