The Hindu : Karnataka News : Minister's remarks leave growers sore

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Thursday, Jun 24, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Minister's remarks leave growers sore

By Our Staff Correspondent

MADIKERI, JUNE 23. The Kodagu Belegarara Okkuta (Kodagu Growers' Federation) on Wednesday expressed displeasure over the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram's statement that the Centre could only consider lowering the interest rate on coffee loans.

Members of the federation told presspersons here today that the growers would fight to secure the minimum support price (MSP) and get loans of small growers waived, which are its two main demands.

A delegation led by the Union Minister of State for Programme Implementation and Statistics, Oscar Fernandes, and comprising the MPs, Prema Cariappa and D.C. Srikantappa, and office-bearers of the Karnataka Growers' Federation had met Mr. Chidambaram in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The honorary president of the federation, M.W. Aiyappa, and its working president, Katti Mandaiah, said another delegation, comprising MPs representing the coffee-growing States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, would go to Delhi to impress upon the Centre to provide sops to the coffee industry which was in dire straits.

The vice-president of the federation, Sudeer, said the federation had given a call for growers in Kodagu to suspend work in their estates on July 2, and assemble at the Deputy Commissioner's office for staging a symbolic protest to press for their demands.

The rally would comprise growers and labourers whose lives had become miserable because of low prices of coffee.

Madappa, a grower, who called for unanimity among various growers' bodies in the district, said that at a meeting convened at Polibetta recently it was resolved to carry on the struggle under one banner.

The Kodagu Growers' Federation would support the initiatives of the Karnataka Growers' Federation, which had taken up the task of pulling the sector out of the crisis, he said.

On the statements of the former Minister M.C. Nanaiah, who had said the MSP and loan waiver might not come by, Mr. Mandaiah felt it was Mr. Nanaiah's individual opinion.

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