Tamil Nadu Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management KKSSR Ramachandran visited flood-hit areas in Tenkasi district on Tuesday.
Accompanied by Collector Durai Ravichandran, MP Dhanush M Kumar, MLA Raja and officials from the Revenue, Rural Development, Agriculture and other departments, he saw the damage to dwellings and standing crops.
Speaking to reporters, he said that preliminary survey by the officials indicated that around 18,000 hectares of crops, including black gram and maize, had been washed away in the floods in December 17 and 18 in the four southern districts.
Dwellings were damaged in 228 villages. Lands measuring about 18,000 hectares had been destroyed. It is estimated that a loss of ₹16 crore could be incurred and over 25,000 farmers had been affected. The only solace was that there was no loss of human lives in the calamity and 92 dwellings were totally damaged, while 200 had been partly damaged in the floods.
The Minister gave away relief to about 300 people and the kit contained five kg of rice, vegetables, bedsheet, etc.
Joint Director of Agriculture Padmavathi said that a detailed report about the loss and damage to the crops and dwellings would be submitted to the State government shortly for approval and sanction of relief.
Tirunelveli
In the neighbouring Tirunelveli district, preliminary survey indicated that at least 3,700 ha of paddy crop were completely destroyed in the floods. According to JD (Agriculture) Muruganandam, the the farmers had planted the saplings for ‘pisanam’ crop only a month ago. The plants which had just started to grow were totally washed away.
Out of the targeted 27,891 ha during the pisanam season, the survey showed that 3,700 ha of paddy crop was damaged. Moreover 300 ha of maize and 5,700 ha of black gram were also washed away in the floods, he said and added that a detailed report would be submitted in a day or two.
