Farmers associations meet Tamil Nadu CM Palaniswami, submits seven-point charter of demands

CHENNAI: A delegation of office-bearers of the Joint Action Council of Farmers Associations in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday called on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami at the Secretariat and submitted a seven-point charter of demands.  One of the demands was that the State government should pay compensation to farmers for loss of crops and disburse the compensation due to coconut growers who had lost their trees to drought. Absence of water in the Cauvery had affected the yield considerably. Besides, the State government should continue to put pressure on the Centre to form the Cauvery Management Board.

The office-bearers also urged the Chief Minister to do the needful for disbursing the dues for sugarcane growers from sugar mills. The dues had not been paid for many years, they said.The council thanked the government for waiving the loans availed of by small and marginal farmers.  The State government should not allow projects to extract hydrocarbon and methane as these would affect the fertile lands of farmers. 
Similarly, the project to lay pipeline for the GAIL project too should not be allowed, the memorandum said and added that the State government should declare that it would not allow genetically-modified crops.