A section of farmers staged a novel protest at the grievances redress day here on Friday to draw the attention of the Central and the State government to their plight as some banks had launched distraint proceedings against them for default against the farm credit availed.
As soon as the meeting was called to order, a group of farmers belonging to the Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangam led by the district president Sukumaran and holding aloft ``mangala sutra’’ moved to the podium and remonstrated with Collector N. Subbaiyan that some lending institutions had launched distraint proceedings against defaulting farmers for recovering the dues.
The protesters claimed that drought-like conditions played havoc with the farmers’ livelihood between 2011 and 2014 while pest attacks razed to the ground any of their hopes for a revival during the past season.
In the current situation, most farmers were not in a position to repay their loans and whatever they could salvage and sell did not fetch them a remunerative price, they alleged.
They petitioned the Centre and the State governments through the District Collector to immediately stop distraint proceedings against the defaulting farmers as they were no left with no jewellery except the mangalasutra of their spouse and the protest was to highlight it. The protesters then walked out of the meeting. Other farmers wanted the Centre to intervene and stop Karnataka from going ahead with its Mekedatu reservoir plan and some others wanted the State Government to open Mettur dam for kuruvai cultivation on June 12. Some other farmers wanted the crop insurance firms to extend adequate compensation for affected paddy and sugar cane farmers.
