A total of 37,576 hectares of land had been affected by drought in Madurai district as per the detailed enumeration exercise carried out by the district administration, Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao said at the farmers’ grievance meeting here on Friday.
He added that the number of farmers affected by drought had been ascertained as 89,830. The detailed enumeration exercise covered 618 of the 645 villages in the district, excluding those coming under urban areas.
Mr. Rao said that the list of affected farmers and the survey numbers would be made public and anyone who had been excluded could approach the respective Village Administrative Officer or other designated official with appropriate documents for verification and inclusion in the list. The Collector also said that bank account details of nearly all the affected farmers had been collected so that the compensation amount could be directly credited to their account.
Farmers, however, expressed concern that the list only included those farmers who had crop failure but excluded those who had to leave their land barren owing to drought. “Since, there was no rainfall and no water supply in the Periyar-Vaigai system, many farmers did not even undertake sowing. It remains a concern whether they will be provided compensation,” said N. Palanichamy, president, Tamil Nadu Sugarcane Farmers’ Association, a view echoed by other farmers in the meeting.
Responding to the issue, Mr. Rao assured that as of now the government wanted the list of farmers who had yield loss. “However, we will recommend to the government that even those who did not sow should be compensated,” he said.
Farmers also raised concern over the announcement made earlier by the State government, in relation to the drought, to convert all crop loans from cooperative banks to medium-term loans. M. Pandian, a farmer, said that there had been no clarity on whether the farmers would be eligible for fresh loans.
“If it is converted to medium-term, the loan will still be open. We do not want it to make us ineligible for a fresh loan in the next farming season. Moreover, will the scheme be applied to farmers with more than five acres of land,” he questioned.
Officials, however, said that there would be clarity on the scheme only after specific instructions were received from the government.
Recurrent issues of the long pending request for de-silting Vaigai dam, wild boar menace in areas like Usilampatti and Peraiyur and removal of seemai karuvelam trees also dominated the grievance meeting. District Revenue Officer K. Veluchamy and Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies S.R. Venkatesan participated in the meeting.
