Balangir, Sept. 7: As monsoon continues to play hide and seek and the threat of drought looms large, at least 2,000 people of 22 villages in Sonepur district have turned to god for rain.

On Monday, the villagers organised a ‘holy bath’ of Lord Shiva at the Ganeshwar Shiva temple in Panchmahala of Sonepur district.

At least a thousand men and 300 women carried pots of water from the nearby Mahanadi and poured them on the god for the ‘holy bath’.

The villagers sought the god’s blessing so that they could get rain to save their crop.

The main organiser of the religious programme, Kailash Purohit, said the villagers had lost hope of saving their crop due to scanty rainfall.

“When they all lost hope of their crop, I told them only Lord Shiva could save them. So, we organised this ‘puja’ and people from 22 villages took part in it,” the priest said. After the ‘holy bath’ of Lord Shiva, all the villagers went to the nearby Badali hilltop, where they performed ‘Giri Gobardhan puja,’ another ritual performed for rain.

“We will continue this kind of programme for some days until there is rain. Next week the villagers will perform ’homa yagnya’ in the Badali hill,” the priest said.

The farmers in the district have been hit hard by the dry spell. Ramesh Pradhan, a farmer of Dasrajpur village, said their entire crop had been damaged.

“We all waited for the rain that never came. So we prayed to god. We hope there will be some rain now,” he said.

Farmer Narottam Meher said he would face severe crop loss if there was no rain immediately.

“If it doesn’t rain in a day or two, my entire crop will be damaged,” he said.

Even the agriculture department had admitted that rainfall had been below normal this year, junior agriculture officer (JAO) of Sonepur Gadadhar Barik said.

“The monsoon rain this year has been much less than that of the last two years. There is threat of drought in some panchyats in the district,” he said.

“We had asked farmers not to cultivate in the upland. Many of them didn’t a heed to our suggestion. Crop in such land will be difficult to save”, he said.

Barik said there was good rain in the last two days in Sonepur and that might help the farmers.