Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Planning panel proposals focus on water conservation

CHENNAI: Water conservation in farming is the focal point of Tamil Nadu’s planning proposals for the Eleventh Plan period, according to the State Planning Commission vice-chairman M. Naganathan.

During most of the previous plan period, farmers in the State were hit by successive spells of drought with floods in one year. “In future too, we may experience deficient rainfall. So, appropriate and modern technologies should be introduced, with particular attention to judicious water use,” Prof. Naganathan told The Hindu on Tuesday. Achieving food security would be the top priority of the State Government.

Arguing that agriculturists should be motivated to adopt new technologies, he said that not much attention was paid to awareness programmes. “Tamil Nadu has shown what difference awareness campaigns have made in the areas of family planning and AIDS control.”

Referring to experiments in precision farming in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts, he said they were successful. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University had been advised to come up with technological options that were suitable to the ground realities.

The problems faced by agriculturists all over the State were not the same. They varied from region to region and crop to crop. “We have formulated our strategies, conscious of inter-district differences and attitudinal responses of farmers.”

Farmers from dry regions were more receptive to technology induction.

“The closer the farmers are to rivers, the less is their realisation of the importance of judicious use of water,” he said. Motivation programmes should target the farmers of the Cauvery delta.

Adverting to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Government’s scheme of distribution of wasteland free to landless labourers, he said one lakh families had been benefited.

“Now, there is hope for poor farmers to earn their livelihood through farming. The Government will assist them in suggesting technologies and providing seeds and subsidy. And, farmers can form production groups and function as self-help groups in agriculture. They can decide themselves the crop pattern. Let them be governed by cooperative spirit without the weaknesses of cooperative societies.”

Pointing out that the gap between rural population and urban population was shrinking in the State, Prof. Naganathan called for improving and strengthening rural infrastructure to arrest migration of people from villages to cities and towns.

On the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, he said the kind component under the scheme was redundant in Tamil Nadu as people got rice at Rs.2 a kg. “So, I have pleaded with the Chief Minister to impress upon the Centre to devise the implementation of such programmes, taking into account ground realities in States. This is because scarce resources of our country should not be wasted.”

The sector of social services covered education, health and social welfare, accounting for about 43 per cent of the proposed allocation. It included schemes in each category to be taken up in rural areas too, he added.

The National Development Council was likely to approve the proposals at its meeting at New Delhi next week.

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