Tamil Nadu - Tiruchi   

Plan to get NOC for borewell drilling scrapped

Staff Reporter

Farmers' difficulties to be conveyed to Govt.

TIRUCHI: The Collector, K. Nanda Kishore, said that the district administration would recommend to the State Government to dispense with the existing procedure, which requires farmers planning to set up borewells in the district to obtain a `no objection certificate' (NOC) from the River Water Conservation Division of the Public Works Department.

Presiding over a farmers' grievances day meeting here on Friday, he said the district administration would soon write a letter to the State Government explaining in detail the difficulties faced by the farmers in irrigating their fields in the absence of a borewell.

The norms say that farmers of Tiruchi district should obtain the NOC though their counterparts in Thanjavur district are not required to do so.

Earlier, a number of farmers voiced their concern on the issue saying they had been hard-hit by the norms during drought-hit years in the past. A. Nagarajan, former village panchayat president of Puliyur; Siva. Suriyan, the district secretary of the Tamizhnadu Vivasayigal Sangam; R. Raja Chidambaram, state secretary of the Tamizhaga Vivasayigal Sangam; and G. Kanagasabai, the president of the Cauvery Delta Farmers' Welfare Association; wanted a uniform policy to be implemented in both Thanjavur and Tiruchi districts without any discrimination.

Mr. Nagarajan said that the horticulturists of Puliyur, Kuzhumani and surrounding areas of Tiruchi district were hard-hit. Apart from obtaining the NOC, they had to deposit Rs.1,000 for every HP as their cultivation had been classified as an industrial activity.

Waiver of interest on coop. farm dues

The Collector said a special cell would be set up at the office of the Joint Registrar of Co-operative Societies to offer clarification to the farmers on the eligibility of the waiver of interest and penal interest. Interest and penal interests to the tune of Rs.15.8 crores would be waived, benefiting 19,900 farmers.

The district secretary of the Tamizhnadu Vivasayigal Sangam, C. Masilamani, and the state general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangam, P. Ayyakannu, said agricultural finance was the need of the hour. Although the waiver had benefited the farmers to a large extent, the non-availability of fresh loans had been hampering samba cultivation this season.

Mr. Kanagasabai said no loan was available for farmers who had not repaid their dues. The non-issue of a government order to cooperative banks was yet another bottleneck, he said.

The farmers also pleaded for the opening of direct procurement centres for `kuruvai,' proper inspection of recovery percentage of juice at sugarcane factories to ensure the disbursement of a fair price to cane growers.

The Collector said a subsidy-based programme for the replacement of worn out agricultural pumpsets with new ones would be implemented in the district. A subsidy of Rs.39.7 lakhs had been released for the replacement of 680 pumpsets.

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