The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : 70-80 per cent samba crop lost, say officials

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 04, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

70-80 per cent samba crop lost, say officials

By our Staff Reporter

A heavily submerged paddy field on the Nagapattinam-Mayiladuturai road.

NAGAPATTINAM, NOV.3. The three-member committee headed by Jagmohan Singh Raju, Commissioner of Agriculture, set up by the State Government to assess flood damage began its work in Nagapattinam today. The two other members of the committee are superintending engineers from the Highways and the Public Works Departments.

The Nagapattinam Collector, M. Veera Shanmugha Moni, the Joint Director of Agriculture, Nagapattinam, G. Saminathan, and other officials accompanied the team and showed them the damages to the samba paddy crop, roads, irrigation channels and tanks on the Nagapattinam-Mayiladuturai stretch this afternoon.

The panel visited a number of villages including Keezhaiyur, Needur, Anathandavapuram, Kadagam and Arivanur in Mayiladuturai taluk and assessed the damage, interacting with farmers and local people in the villages.

Mr. Moni told The Hindu that the panel would visit the areas adjoining Nagapattinam till tomorrow noon. Agriculture Department officials in Nagapattinam told the Commissioner that there was no possibility of saving 70 to 80 per cent of the submerged samba paddy crops in the district even after the water receded.

The panel will go to Tiruvarur district tomorrow afternoon and visit several parts of Thanjavur district on Friday to assess the damage.

Meanwhile, Arupathi Kalyanam, general secretary of the Federation of Farmers Associations in Thanjavur, Tiruchi and Nagapattinam districts, have urged the Government to pay compensation of Rs.8,000 per acre for the rain-damaged crops.

He said that not desilting the irrigation channels in the last three years had led to the heavy inundation of paddy fields this year.

He said samba paddy crops in more than two lakh acres were damaged in the Cauvery delta region of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts during the recent heavy rains and that the damage was the worst in Nagapattinam district.

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