Allegations of widespread corruption at National Cooperative Sugar Mills (NCSM) here and adulteration in cattle feed provided to dairy farmers through Aavin dominated the monthly farmers’ grievance meeting held at Collectorate here on Friday.
N. Palanichamy, an executive committee member at the NCSM and president of Tamil Nadu Sugarcane Farmers’ Association, alleged that scrutiny of records for 2015-16 at the mill revealed procurement of implausible amount of sugarcane from farmers for crushing.
“The normal yield on an acre is 35 to 40 tonnes. However, the record shows that in some instances, the mill has procured even up to 76 tonnes per acre from farmers. This indicates that the mill paid the farmers for the actual yield but the records were cooked up to show that the mill paid for more tonnes so as to swindle the excess money,” he claimed.
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In a petition submitted to Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao, Mr. Palanichamy also alleged corruption at the mill in various ways, including in carrying out maintenance work, installation of CCTV cameras and projection of loss due to evaporation at the petrol bunk functioning in the mill.
Assuring a swift action, Mr. Rao informed the meeting that a committee headed by District Revenue Officer (DRO) would investigate the allegations and submit a report, based on which action would be taken.
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Meanwhile, a number of dairy farmers alleged that the cattle feed provided to them through Aavin was adulterated with sand.
“When I mix five kilos of the feed in water, I can see at least half-a-kilo sand settling down. The cows fall ill and the milk yield also takes a hit,” alleged K. Thanikodi, a dairy farmer.
P. Tamilalagan, another farmer from Alanganallur, said that because of the adulteration, the dairy farmers were forced to buy cattle feed from outside at a higher price.
Officials from Aavin present at the meeting said that the cattle feed was procured from an Andhra Pradesh-based company.
“We have received complaints and we are in the process of collecting samples for testing,” an official said.
Mr. Rao instructed the officials to do a preliminary testing of the cattle feed from randomly selected farmers within two days and stop the procurement from the company if there were indications of adulteration.
Concerns about clearing of encroachments on waterbodies and completion of maintenance work by Public Works Department were also raised at the meeting. A section of farmers brought a banner with pictures showing dumping of garbage and non-maintenance of the main canal feeding the Madakulam tank.
Mr. Rao ordered PWD officials to take up the cleaning work of the canal on priority.
DRO K. Veluchamy, Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies S.R. Venkatesan and Joint Director (Agriculture) S. Kanagaraj were present at the meeting.