The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Thanjavur News : Farmers walk out from grievance day meeting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 28, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Thanjavur

Farmers walk out from grievance day meeting

Staff Reporter

GRIEVANCES GALORE: Farmers staging a demonstration in Thanjavur on Friday. Photo: R. Shivaji Rao.

THANJAVUR: : Thanjavur district farmers today staged a walkout from the monthly grievance day meeting held at the Collectorate here on Friday.

They objected to the Karnataka Government's alleged move to launch new projects to irrigate nearly 4.47 lakh acres of land using Kabini water.

They urged the State and Central governments to take steps to stop the move, as it was illegal on the part of Karnataka to take up irrigation projects when the Cauvery River Water Disputes Tribunal was yet to give its final award.

Pon. Kaliyamurthy, a progressive farmer of Budalur Panchayat Union, said that Karnataka had not released the Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu as per the interim award of the tribunal.

For the past three years, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam district farmers had not taken up kuruvai cultivation due to water scarcity and incurred heavy losses.

The Tamil Nadu Government should demand convening of the Cauvery River Authority by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and take steps to get water from Karnataka so that Mettur dam could be opened on June 12 for kuruvai cultivation as usual.

If farmers could not take up kuruvai cultivation this year, they should be given a compensation of Rs. 5,000 an acre and farm labourers should be paid Rs.1,200 a month.

If water was not released for kuruvai, applications given by farmers for energisation of pump sets should be cleared and connections given.

The Agriculture Department had conducted special camps in 140 villages to encourage cultivation of alternative crops this year, M. Veera Shanmugha Moni, Collector, said.

Blackgram has so far been raised on 2219 hectares, gingeley on 10,693 hectares, sunflower on 198 hectares, groundnut on 5602 hectares in the district.

The plan is to raise alternative crops on 22,409 hectares.

Under integrated horticulture development programme, it has been decided to raise fruit saplings on 50 hectares and vegetables on 125 hectares.

The State Government-owned Kurunkulam Anna Sugar Mills has disbursed Rs.26.05 crores for 291,319 tonnes of sugarcane crushed during 2004-2005.

As against the target of 7,800 pump-sets, 4,141 pump-sets had so far been energised during 2004-2005, he added.

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