A group of nursery owners at Kallu Kudiyiruppu village near Arimalam in the district have been running from pillar to post to find silt for raising nurseries of ornamental and horticultural plants. Arimalam block in general and the villages in and around Kallu Kudiyiruppu in particular are ideally suited for raising horticultural crops due to red-loam soil.
About 70 persons, most of them women, belonging to six self-help groups, are involved in raising nurseries for the past one decade in the village which falls under the Kummangudi village panchayat.
Initially, they were able to get the red soil, available in the form of silt, for free from Usilamkulam, a tank located at the Melnilaivayal village panchayat. However, in the last few years, the panchayat had denied permission to transport the silt. Due to this, the members of the self-help groups have taken on lease a piece of patta land in the panchayat for quarrying soil up to a depth of 1.50 feet. “We have been incurring huge expenditure because of this,” said Kamatchi, leader of one of the SHGs.
Other members said that they have to shell out Rs. 1,000 for transporting a tractor load of sand from Melnilaivayal to their farm. The district administration had set up borewell and work shed, but commercial tariff for power connection at our farm hits us hard,” Kamatchi said.
Although a memorandum had been submitted to the district administration to permit them to quarry sand for free and to declassify their power connection under domestic tariff, nothing has materialised, she said.
The SHG members, including women, were reformed bootleggers, and they took to the trade after intervention by the district administration and the District Supply and Marketing Society. So.Sathyaseelan, former manager of the society which sanctioned loans for setting up the nursery farm a decade ago, said there has been a marked improvement in the lifestyle and economic status of the members.
