CHENNAI: The real estate industry is upbeat about the proposed expansion of the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA), as it brings the entire Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts under the “metropolitan” tag. But known for vast tracks of paddy fields, the farmers in these districts fear that such an expansion of the capital city would sound a death-knell for agriculture in the belt sooner or later.
Already on the downswing, indebted farmers may easily choose to sell off their lands at good prices if the land value skyrockets, as it usually happens when an area gets classified as ‘urban’.
“Anyone may sell off their land if they get a good price around here. Farming is not a huge profit-making business,” said K Nehru, a farmer, at his small office in Kancheepuram town.
Nehru was one of a few farmers who attended the public hearing at the Kancheepuram Collector’s office on April 20 on the proposal to expand the Chennai’s metropolitan area limits. “There were around 200 participants, but most were builders and developers and many others were government officials. Very few were members of the public,” he said.
According to data with the Environmental Information System Centre under the Environment Ministry, on the ‘Tamil Nadu Status of Environment & Related Issues’, 47% of the population in Kancheepuram are involved in agriculture.
Many paddy fields in the district continue to harvest three crops a year and with copious ground water in most parts, Kancheepuram is well placed for agriculture. “Kancheepuram can harvest at least two crops even when there is little rain. Only on rare instances, like the drought in 2016 and the year that followed, do we struggle to cope,” said Nehru. Farmers in this district are in need of government assistance rather than a ‘metropolitan’ tag.
For instance, in 2017, in a small village Agaram in Kancheepuram, 47-year-old Chandrasekaran killed himself after the paddy crop in his eight-acre field failed. A lot has since changed for his widow, Shanthi, who had to secretly move to Chennai to find work and her daughter, who dropped out of school. However, there was no compensation in sight. “When we contacted officials, they said his suicide has been categorised as falling under personal reasons and not due to farming debts, and so, we are not entitled to compensation of any sort,” said Shanthi.
For over six months after his death, the money lenders from whom Shanthi said her husband had borrowed over Rs 4 lakh had refrained from asking her to repay the loans, she said. “Now, they’ve started pestering me day and night. I’ve moved to Chennai where my mother lives to find work as a domestic help, but I can’t tell them that because they’d think that I’m trying to flee without repaying them. So I shuttle between Agaram and Chennai every week.” Today, his children have inherited his debts, said Shanthi.
While farmers are expecting government aid to shore up falling profits and ease mounting debts in agriculture, the State government’s move to expand the metropolitan area would lead to them giving up agriculture altogether, said farmers. Thiruvallur, also proposed to be included in the metropolitan area, has a sprawling agricultural belt. According to the data available with the district administration, the total crop area in Kancheepuram was 1,98,543 hectares, out of which 1,45,966 hectares was under paddy cultivation.
While the expansion remains to be finalised, with the public hearings concluded only recently, speculations of skyrocketing land prices have already led to farmers selling or looking to sell off their lands, according to farmers in the area. “Large investors procure huge stretches of land and leave them uncultivated for five years in order to get agricultural land reclassified for other purposes,” said VN Perumal of Alapakkam.
Besides, the public consultations has done nothing to put their fears at rest, said farmers, with many of their queries receiving vague and hurried responses. “It is unclear if we will continue to receive the benefits and subsidies, as we do now, from the Rural Development department, once the town is integrated with the Chennai Metropolitan Area,” said J Sankar, a farmer in Uthiramerur, who also attended the public consultation in Kancheepuram.
In 2011, Kancheepuram municipality was expanded to include three village panchayats in the district — Orikkai, Thenambakkam and Nathapettai. Seven years later, residents have nothing to show for it, other than increased tax rates, said farmers. For years now, farming in the district, as everywhere else in the country, is on the decline. The move, said farmers, will only help in its rapid downfall. “There has to be at least some kind of transparency in what they intend to do. If the farmers here decide to sell off their land, what do they plan to eat?” asks Nehru, as he walks off into his field, shooting off instructions to the women bundling paddy shoots in his field.
Fear factor
Indebted farmers may be lured easily to sell off their lands
Farming is still sustainable in the region and urbanisation will destroy it completely, leaving thousands of farmers unemployed
Subsidies could be revoked
Lack of transparency.
They need more government assistance, not ‘urban’ tag
Worried over loss of financial assistance
Citing the example of Kancheepuram municipality expanding to include three village panchayats in the district in 2011, M Gopalakrishnan of Alanjeri village said: “The farmers there received no benefits from their inclusion into the municipality. Not only that, schemes and subsidies were revoked. It could happen to us.”