After over seven months, the grievance redress meeting for farmers resumed in Tiruppur district on Thursday. As many as 124 farmers took part in a virtual meeting with the officials.
The meeting, which remained suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held through Zoom video-conferencing platform, a release said.
District Collector K. Vijayakarthikeyan, Joint Director of Agriculture Department S. Manoharan and other officials participated in the meeting from the Collectorate, where they interacted with farmers from all 13 blocks in the district.
Mr. Manoharan told The Hindu that 124 farmers participated in the meeting. Around 10 farmers per block gathered at the respective Block Agricultural Extension Centres, where arrangements were made for the meeting. “Even though the grievance meeting [for farmers] was last held in February, the farmers were coming to the Collectorate regularly in these seven months to convey their grievances,” he said.
Some of the issues discussed during the meeting were regarding Parambikulam-Aliyar Project and milk procurement by Aavin in the district, according to Mr. Manoharan. The meeting was held from 11 a.m. till 2 p.m and petitions were received by the officials at the Block Agricultural Extension Centres.
District Secretary of Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Association R. Kumar, who participated in the meeting at Uthukuli block, welcomed the resumption of the grievance meetings. However, he alleged that there were no immediate replies from the officials for the queries placed by farmers during the virtual meeting and suggested that more officials should participate in the next meeting.
