Farmers representatives of Tiruchi district on Friday demanded village-wise enumeration of cattle deaths caused by the foot and mouth disease.
Disputing the claims of the district authorities that only three cows have died in the village due to the disease, the farmer’s representatives claimed that many cattle deaths have gone unrecorded.
Raising the issue at the farmer’s grievances meeting, Ayilai Sivasuriyan, district secretary of the CPI-affiliated Tamil Nadu Farmers Association, said there have been widespread deaths across the district and demanded that the district administration to conduct an enumeration through the village administrative officers (VAOs). Farmers have sustained heavy losses and should be compensated.
Puliyur A. Nagarajan, president, Horticulture Crop Producers Association, said there have been quite a few cattle deaths due to the disease in villages such as Posampatti and Podavur and many farmers have buried the carcasses. VAOs are not registering the deaths, insisting on production of post mortem reports to establish that the deaths were due to FMD. N. Ganesan, joint secretary, Tamil Nadu Milk Producers Welfare Association, suggested that vaccination for cattle be carried out on particular dates every year on the lines of the Pulse Polio immunisation campaign.
I. Chinnadurai, Joint Director of Animal Husbandry, said 3.10 lakh heads of cattle were vaccinated in the district in September and October and so far only three cows, including one at Dheerampalayam and two at Nagar, have died.
Eight treated cattle had died in Punganur village due to acidosis, days after recovering from the disease. Of the 3,378 head of cattle that were affected by the disease, 3,335 have been cured and the rest were under treatment. Field inspections by officials have found that there was no cattle death due to the disease at Podavur and Posampatti villages. Whenever cattle deaths are reported, Animal Husbandry Department officials have been directed to conduct post mortem to establish the cause of the deaths, he said .
Collector Jayashree Muralidharan said the district administration has also supported a private initiative to administer Siddha medicine (meant to boost immunity) to about 35,000 cattle in the district. Rejecting the demand for conducting an enumeration of cattle deaths across the district, she, however, said the district administration was willing to conduct enquiries if farmers came up with specific complaints of unrecorded deaths in villages. Even under normal circumstances, 40 cattle deaths occur in the district on an average and all deaths cannot be attributed to the FMD .
Compensation was a matter of policy which cannot be decided at the district level; she said and pointed out that there was also a case pending before the High Court on the matter.
