The Tamizhaga Eri Matrum Aatrupasana Vivasayigal Sangham has urged the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Management Board and the Cauvery Regulatory Authority immediately. This was one of the major resolutions passed at the sangham’s meeting here on Sunday.
According to its State president P. Viswanathan, who was in the chair, the Centre’s failure to make Karnataka release water had resulted in loss of kuruvai crop on over six lakh acres of land and banana and sugarcane crops on another six lakh acres during the current season in Tamil Nadu. Farmers were subjected to untold misery, some even went to the extent of committing suicide. “The Centre has been indifferent to their plight,” he alleged.
To help farmers, who had commenced preliminary operations for kuruvai knowing full well that there was no water in the Cauvery and they had to depend only on the groundwater, Tamil Nadu Government should ensure three-phase power supply eight hours during the day and eight hours at night. They should be provided free fertilisers.
Pointing out that Tamil Nadu government had declared 31 districts in the State as “drought hit”, both because of failure of monsoon and nil water flow in the Cauvery, and also extended drought relief to all these districts, he pleaded that all the crop loans obtained from both the co-operative and the public sector banks in 2011-12 should be written off.
As farmers had been badly hit during the past couple of years, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa should enhance the procurement price of paddy to Rs. 1,750 a quintal, sugarcane to Rs. 3,000 a tonne and cotton to Rs. 75 a kg. The procurement price of all other crops should be increased, he said.
While thanking the Chief Minister for setting up a Rs. 1,200-crore paper board unit in Srirangam constituency and for creating Marungapuri taluk, the association urged her not to permit setting up of a methane unit in the delta region which would seriously hurt agriculture because the water table might slump to 400 ft.
Another resolution demanded compensation for banana growers who had incurred losses because of the gales that struck Tiruchi and Pudukottai districts recently.
