A few cane growers questioned the delay in payment of dues for the sugarcane supplied to the mills during the farmers’ grievance day meeting held on Friday.
At the meeting chaired by Collector S.A. Raman, Venkatarathinam, a farmer, said the dues were still pending for the cane he had supplied to the cooperative sugar mill at Tirutani. “Mill authorities are saying that the government is yet to release the funds,” he said.
R. Subash, another farmer, said they had been raising the issue of delay in releasing the dues for the last one year but to no avail. While salaries for mill employees were being disbursed promptly, the farmers were not getting their dues, he said.
He also said the government had not disbursed the State advisory price for sugarcane to the farmers for the last two years. The farmers demanded that the special officers of the mills attend the grievance meeting to answer their queries.
Pon Parthasarathy, another farmer, urged the district administration to inform the MLAs about the grievance redressal meeting. “A few MLAs are ready to attend the meeting. If they come, they will be able to look into our demands and address them,” he said.
Bad roads
Varunakumar, a farmer, said the road from Matrapalli to Pudurnadu was in a bad shape. “Many road users have fallen due to the potholes and sustained injuries. The road needs to be widened and repaired,” he said. The Forest Department officials said the highways department had taken up road widening works for five metres, while widening was permitted only to three metres.
“Hence, we had to stop the works. They were razing down portions of the hills and this could damage trees. The highways department can send a proposal to the Principal Conservator of Forests seeking approval for widening the stretch to five metres,” a forest official told the Collector.
Farmer Udayakumar urged the officials to pay compensation to them for felling trees before taking up works to erect electricity towers. Officials said the farmers would be given 80% of the land value for the place where the tower was being erected, and 15% of land value at places where the lines pass through.
The farmers also urged the officials to provide uninterrupted power supply for at least six hours during noon. They also wanted direct procurement centres to be set up in more places, check unlicensed fertilizer sale outlets, and measures to check discharge of tannery effluents into waterbodies.
