KARUR: Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi is in the best position now to ensure that the State gets its due share of the Cauvery waters, farmers in the delta believe. They are also urging the State Government to take a cue from Karnataka, which has reduced interest on farm loans.

This will help farmers repay the loans and avoid a huge burden to the Government in future in the form of waivers. They also want fresh credit extended to those who take up kuruvai cultivation.

Assuming power at a time when there is a threat of even the interim award of 205 tmcft being watered down, only Mr. Karunanidhi, with his wisdom and experience in handling Centre-State equations, can ensure that the State gets its due share, observes the Working President of the Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association, Mahadanapuram V. Rajaram. The schism in the Cauvery Tribunal is threatening to subsume the interests of the State and the delta farmers fear that benchmarking the 1970s figures could jeopardise the delta farmers' needs.

"We need at least 320 tmcft and anything less would be really insufficient. Only a person of Mr. Karunanidhi's stature can now further our cause as Karnataka is harping on what it was claiming since 1976," he says.

The Association will urge the State Government to bring down the rate of interest on farm loans to a flat four per cent and make it affordable to farmers.

Fresh credit

Taking into consideration the comfortable storage at the Mettur Dam, delta farmers expect the State Government to initiate steps to disburse fresh farm credit to those who take up kuruvai cultivation, according to the Convener of Farmers Discussion Group, A. V. Gopaladesikan.

This can go on even as cooperative institutions finalise waiver of farm loans.

While thanking the Government for the waiver of cooperative farm loans, Mr. Gopaladesikan says non-farm loans taken for purchase of cattle, tractors and farm implements from primary agricultural cooperative banks and land development banks should also be waived.

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