The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : CPI (M) calls for urgent relief in demoralised delta

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

CPI (M) calls for urgent relief in demoralised delta

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, NOV. 9. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today urged the State Government and the Centre to take up relief measures on a war-footing in Nagapattinam and Tiruvarur districts, where monsoon rain has played havoc.

The State Secretariat member, G. Ramakrishnan, who led a team of party functionaries and farmers' representatives to the rain-hit areas, told The Hindu here that agriculturists were demoralised as the samba crop, raised after successive drought in the last three years, perished in most parts of the two districts. Thousands of farmhands, most of them Dalits, not only lost their job opportunity but were displaced by incessant rain.

Irreparable damage was caused to the standing crop, as 90 per cent of the sown area in Nagapattinam district and over one-third of the crop area in Tiruvarur were inundated for days together.

Though "failure" on the part of the administration to desilt drainage channels contributed to the havoc, farmers in the coastal areas had to bear the brunt, Mr. Ramakrishnan said. The huge bunds around a large number of shrimp farms along the 50-km stretch of the Nagapattinam-Vedaranyam road prevented free flow of stormwater into the sea. Only 86 of the 900-odd shrimp farms obtained licence in Nagapattinam district, he said.

The locals wanted the Centre and the State to make coordinated efforts to provide them alternate jobs such as laying roads, desilting drainage channels and strengthening tank bunds under the new food-for-work programme, Mr. Ramakrishnan pointed out.

The CPI (M) would urge the Government to provide compensation to farmers at Rs.10,000 an acre where the crop was fully damaged. A cash relief of Rs.10,000 for fully-damaged houses and Rs. 5000 for partly-damaged houses should be given to the farmhands.

The Government should reconstruct damaged group houses allotted to the farm workers. Free rice should be distributed to the farmhands at Rs. 30 a kg a month a family.

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