Kerala - Alappuzha   

Efforts on to get harvesters

Helping hands: Students of Kerala Agricultural University who joined the paddy harvest in Kuttanad on Wednesday.

ALAPPUZHA: Scarcity of combine harvesters in the rain-hit Kuttanad is continuing in spite of the efforts of the district administration to procure them from neighbouring States.

The administration, which had sent teams to other districts and neighbouring States to procure harvesters, is now facing double-trouble of fighting rumour mongers who are preventing the machines from coming to Kuttanad and also rising complaints of physical threat to officials who are supervising the harvest process in the region.

According to officials, more than 50 combine harvesters would have reached Kuttanad from various places in Tamil Nadu by Monday had the owners not backed out at the last moment. The reason cited by the owners was that they had received “information” that their machines would be destroyed if sent to Kuttanad.

District Collector V.K. Balakrishnan said four machines that were loaded onto trucks in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday were unloaded in the last minute due to rumours spread by vested interests. “But we are not giving up,” Mr. Balakrishnan said.

Efforts were on to assemble a few machines from an agricultural engineering college in Tamil Nadu apart from bringing the Kerala Agro Machineries Corporation’s (KAMCO) mechanical reapers.

A few of these hand reapers, powered by engines, were in fact put to use when students and staff of the Kerala Agricultural University along with Vice-Chancellor K.R. Viswambharan, joined the harvest at Mankombu on Wednesday.

“We can use the KAMCO hand reapers wherever the crop is standing and not bent to the ground by the rains. Otherwise, we will deploy around 50 combine harvesters that were attached to the Collector’s pool.

More combine harvesters would be brought in a couple of days,” Mr. Balakrishnan told The Hindu.

On the other hand, an untoward incident on Tuesday has left agriculture officers (AO) agitated.

The manhandling of the Edathua AO allegedly by a group of farmers irate over the re-deployment of a combiner harvester that was being used in their paddy field has led to the Association of Agriculture Officers calling a State-wide protest on Thursday.

The police, in the meanwhile, have arrested two persons in connection with Tuesday’s incident.

Mr. Balakrishnan, who condemned the incident, said the police had been asked to take stringent criminal action against anyone who obstructed the harvest process or functioning of officials.

With at least 12,000 acres of paddy crop remaining to be harvested, the administration was pulling out all stops to finish the process smoothly. So far, 24,176 metric tonnes of paddy had been procured, the Collector added.

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