State Human Rights Commission member, R. Natarajan on Wednesday reprimanded about 20 government employees for not attending the seminar organised by the Commission in Ramankary in the district to discuss the agrarian crisis in relation to the Kuttanad package.
The Commission summoned two assistant directors, 12 agricultural officers coming under the jurisdiction of paddy polders in Kuttanad and 11 panchayat secretaries who had not attended the Commission’s seminar on January 21.
The seminar was organised with an aim to study the problems faced by farmers in Kuttanad and also to find solutions to them. The seminar was organised based on reports that many a time the problems faced by farmers were not known to outside world and these problems often led to their suicides.
The seminar was attended by NGOs, farmers, farmers’ organizations and paddy polders. The commission had taken note of the fact that some of the employees kept off the meeting conducted with the fund from Government. The employees explained to the Commission that they could not attend the seminar as they were busy with the auditing process in the panchayats.
The Commission took up 50 cases on Wednesday for consideration. Of these, 9 cases were settled and parties did not attend on 15 other cases. The remaining cases were postponed to next sitting.
