The Dharmapuri District Milk Cooperative Federation has received Rs. 3 crore from the State Milk Cooperative Federation. With this fund, the pending amount to the milk cooperatives is being cleared, Collector V. Arun Roy said here on Friday.
Keeping in mind the festival season, the farmers were demanding immediate disbursal of the pending amount to the cooperative societies at the monthly grievances meeting.
The farmers raised this demand in the grievances meeting held on Friday. Replying to their demand, Mr. Roy announced sanctioning of fund.
Farmers from Anchetti demanded sales depots of the agriculture department be opened in Anchetti and Denkankikottai as they had to travel at least 65 km to Thaly for buying agricultural inputs and fertilizers. A farmer from Denkanikottai complained that the lake was polluted due to indiscriminate dumping of waste by the public. The culprits should be arrested immediately, they said. Farmers also demanded compensation for the paddy crop damaged in about 10,000 acres due to water shortage and Brown Plant Hopper (PPH). Farmers said they incurred Rs. 20,000 loss per acre.
A.K. Mani, Professor and Head, Regional Research Station, Paiyur clarified that BPT 5204 (Jalagarapalli in local language) variety was susceptible to PPH attack as it was most active during the growing, flowering and milking stage. Farmers were cultivating this crop to get maximum price. The farmers said that they be allowed to take soil from the lakes for agriculture purpose. Power connection should be given to farmers on priority basis, they added.
In reply to the demand for establishing government-controlled paddy procurement centre at Kaveripattinam and Pochampalli, Mr. Roy said that the district administration had already written to the government in this regard.
The suggestion of Vivekanandan (Tamizhaga Vivsayigal Sangam) that excess water from South Pennar River be brought to lakes in and around Uthangarai to improve the groundwater table evoked good response. Mr. Roy asked the Public Works Department to conduct a survey and submit a report on this.
Replying to another demand, Mr. Roy said that the revenue department officials were ordered to evict encroachments in water bodies and action had been initiated to survey the water bodies to fix the boundaries.
He also said that the PWD canals were being desilted under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the district.
As many as 88 petitions were taken up for scrutiny at the grievances meeting. The Collector received 112 petitions at the grievances meeting.
P. Prabhkar, District Revenue Officer, and K. Rajan, Joint Director, Agriculture Department among others participated in the meeting.
