Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 14, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Saturday, Jul 14, 2007 ePaper |
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Tamil Nadu
S. Vydhianathan
Inflow into Mettur reservoir continues to rise 60 percent of workers have migrated
CHENNAI: Farmers in the delta districts, though jubilant over the decision to release water from the Mettur reservoir from July 25, have doubts over the successful completion of samba cultivation in view of the acute shortage of farm labourers. They feel it will be difficult to cover the normal area with the present labour force. About 60 per cent of the farm workers have migrated to other districts in the last four years due to lack of continuous employment and poor wages. A majority of the available labourers are aged above 50 years. The youth and middle-aged men prefer to sweat it out on construction sites. General secretary of the Cauvery Delta Farmers’ Welfare Association S. Ranganathan said 20 years of agricultural neglect had driven the workers out of the delta districts. A majority of them had either gone to Tirupur for knitting works or to neighbouring districts to join the construction industry, where the wages were higher. So the farmers were forced to pay higher wages, resulting in increased cost of cultivation. There had been no substantial rise in the minimum support price for paddy. He feared it would be possible to cover only 60 to 75 per cent of the samba coverage with the available workforce. A.P. Kalyanam, general secretary of the Federation of Farmers Associations in delta districts, said as per the Kolappan Committee report, the total number of agricultural labourers in the delta districts was 11.75 lakh in 1997. This had come down to less than 7 lakh over the years. At present, farmers paid labourers Rs.100 a day as against the Government recommended wage of Rs.80. Even then, “we are not getting sufficient workers.” Mechanisation was the only alternative to overcome the crisis. For this, the Agriculture Department should come forward to give farm implements on hire to farmers. Only then would it be possible to cover the normal area under samba, he added. Rise in inflow
Inflow into the Mettur reservoir continues to be on the rise. It will increase still further in the coming days as Karnataka has started releasing water from both Kabini and Krishnaraja Sagar reservoirs. The storage at Mettur on Friday was 57.95 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet with an inflow of 28,293 cusecs. The storage will cross 60 tmcft at any time with Karnataka on Friday releasing 19,625 cusecs and 20,775 cusecs of water from the Kabini and the KRS reservoirs respectively. PWD officials said the Government had decided to open the reservoir on July 25 despite sufficient storage to prevent the farmers from taking up kuruvai cultivation in the season. By the time the reservoir was opened for irrigation, the storage would be substantial enough to ensure enough water for samba crops, they added.
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