THANJAVUR
The Coordination Committee of All Farmers’ Associations in Tamil Nadu has called upon the State government to ascertain and explain the factors that led to the alleged ‘shortage’ of fertilizers to the farming community.
Talking to reporters at Okkanadu Melaiyur on Friday, the committee president P.R.Pandian said while the Union government sends SMS to the farmers stating subsidies had been allotted to encourage production of urea/fertilizers, the agriculture operations in Tamil Nadu were bogged down by the shortage in availability of fertilizers.
Stating that unofficial reports received by the farmers reveal that the manufacturers had reduced the quantum of production drastically citing the difference in cost of production and sales realisation, he said the situation turned grim with lesser quantum of import of fertilizers though there were not of restrictions laid on the import of fertilizers.
Hence, the State government should ascertain the actual cause for the shortage of fertilizers and ensure that necessary steps were initiated to help the farmers take up ‘samba’ and ‘thaladi’ cultivations without much difficulty.
Pointing out that the present storage at Mettur would not be sufficient to fulfil the irrigation requirements for ‘samba’ and ‘thaladi’, he urged the Tamil Nadu government to persist the Cauvery Water Management Authority to visit the dams in Karnataka, which have reached their full water storage capacity due a good South West monsoon season, to ensure that the upper riparian State release the Tamil Nadu’s share in Cauvery without fail.
He had also pleaded that the State government should ensure that the work of desilting/renovation of waterodies/courses and irrigation channels in the State were taken up in February every year to ensure smooth and assured supply of water for irrigation during the cultivation seasons.
