A group of visually-challenged students, who are pursuing their graduation and postgraduation courses in various colleges here, submitted a petition to Collector M .Karunakaran on Monday, seeking timely disbursal of their scholarship every year.
The petitioners said they were not given their scholarship on time, which left them in deep trouble every academic year. The visually-challenged students, mostly from poor background, were continuing their studies despite several hurdles, they said.
The official machinery’s “failure” to ensure the timely disbursal of scholarships was threatening to scuttle their higher education, they alleged. “The scholarship is given to us only after we petition the Collector every year,” said K. Ayyapandi, State general secretary of Palayamkottai Visually-Challenged School Old Boys’ Association.
DMDK petition
Meanwhile, a group of cadres of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam submitted a petition against the decision to hand over a marriage hall owned by Perumalpuram Housing Cooperative Society to an individual for maintenance. “The marriage hall, which has been serving the people, particularly to the people from the lower and middle income groups, for the past 40 years, cannot be used anymore if it is handed over to the individual,” alleged Mohamed Ali, party’s Tirunelveli City district secretary.
Crop insurance
In their petition, a group of farmers from Maanur said over 100 farmers had cultivated sugarcane based on the ‘contract farming’ agreement they had signed with a private sugar mill. Based on this agreement, two nationalised banks released loans for procuring agro inputs, maintenance and installing drip irrigation equipment.
“The banks, which deducted crop insurance premium from the loan amount, have not paid it to the insurance companies. Ultimately, the farmers who suffered crop loss cannot get the compensation and the others were yet to be paid by the sugar mill for the sugarcane supplied. The Collector should end the farmers’ ordeals,” said S. Velayutham, one of the affected farmers.
Water pipeline
A group of women from Nellaiyapuram under ward 50 of Tirunelveli Corporation submitted a petition to the Collector, seeking replacement of damaged drinking water pipelines to make the distribution effective.