Federation of Farmers’ Associations of Delta Districts has appealed to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to reconsider the drought assessment made by the high-level committee.
In a memorandum to the Chief Minister, general secretary of the federation Aarupathy P. Kalyanam said that the federation had sent a representation to her on February 27 regarding the drought relief announcement made by her on February 8 and the subsequent G.O Ms 48 dated February 13.
“In our representation we have clearly mentioned that the assessment made by the high- level committee during the second week of January and the report submitted to the Chief Minister on January 31 is not based on proper assessment of each and every revenue village. Further, six lakh acres affected during February, for which the Tamil Nadu government had argued in the Supreme Court demanding at least nine tmcft of water on February 7, have not been taken into consideration for providing relief.”
Mr. Kalyanam said the federation had prayed to the State government to include the six lakh acres in the three districts with proper village- level assessment. Further, it had also explained that clubbing of disaster relief with agricultural insurance and Cauvery special drought relief had led to “anomalies and irregularities” in the disbursal of compensation.
“We have represented these issues to the three Collectors and large numbers of farmers have also represented these issues at the farmers’ grievance day meetings.”
The federation representatives personally met the Secretary and the Commissioner for Agriculture on March 8 and explained the pathetic condition of delta farmers. “But so far we have not received any positive response from the government.”
He lamented that even an acknowledgement to the representation had not so far been received. Even though the area with over 50 per cent yield loss was more than 10 lakh acres in the eight districts, the assessment was mere 3.61 lakh acres benefiting only 1.75 lakh farmers, he contended.
Mr. Kalyanam alleged that the district administrations had completely violated the G.O and credited the allotted amount of Rs. 541.5 crore to around 3.21 lakh farmers.
“We pray that our representation sent on February 27 to the CM Cell, the Chief Secretary, the Secretaries concerned and the Collectors, and our subsequent pleas made through e-mail may kindly be brought to the personal knowledge of the Chief Minister to save the millions of farmers in misery.”
