The scorching sun has been beating down on parched farmlands in Malda, sucking the waterbodies dry and causing the groundwater level to plummet. Officials in the district agriculture department fear huge crop losses if it does not rain in the next few days. The four blocks of Old Malda, Bamungola, Gajole and Habibpur are already facing severe drinking water shortage. Standing boro paddy and jute stalks are wilting in the searing heat. "I cannot get any water to irrigate my paddy which I had planted on just over two acres. The ponds and shallow marshes in the area have all gone bone dry,' said Zulfikar Ali, a farmer of Jalalpur village in Kaliachak. Chief agricultural officer Ranjit Pal said the situation was "bad'. "If there is no rain, paddy and jute crops will suffer and there is bound to be huge losses. The paddy is growing on more than 35,000 hectares of land in the district and jute on 8,000 hectares,' he said. Pal added that the boro paddy and jute both needs intensive irrigation. "I have already drawn the attention of the district magistrate and the agriculture department in Calcutta to the problem,' the officer said. "The water level of the Mahananda and the Tangon has gone down. This is rare because usually at this time of the year there is some rain,' an executive engineer of the irrigation department said. The heat has already affected Malda's mango output. "At least 10 per cent of mangoes have dropped off from the branches in the past week,' Manoranjan Khanra, the mango development officer of Malda, said. Malda district magistrate Chittaranjan Das said an emergency meeting would be convened tomorrow afternoon. "Officials of all departments concerned have been asked to attend it,' Das said.