THANJAVUR: Even as the contours of the plan to declare the Cauvery Delta a Protected Special Agriculture Zone (PSAZ), announced by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami last week, are yet to emerge, the expectations of farmers in the region are sky high. Palaniswami’s announcement underlined the importance of the Cauvery delta, which has 28 lakh acres of cultivable land and produces 33 lakh tonnes of paddy a year.
Palaniswami, making the announcement, also acknowledged the concerns of farmers about their livelihood and sustainability of agriculture in the wake of proposed hydrocarbon exploration projects. He assured that no new hydrocarbon exploration projects would be allowed in the delta.
A long-time demand
The demand to designate the Cauvery delta as a PSAZ was in the nascent stage in 2011-12 when a public hearing for the Coal Bed Methane (CBM) project was held in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur. As the protest against the CBM gathered momentum, the demand also gained traction among the farmers, says V Sethuraman, State Resource Person of the Tamil Nadu Science Movement, and farmer from Mannargudi.
However there is no precedent of such a zone in the country. “Uttarakhand was the first State to introduce the concept of Special Agriculture Zone, but that too was only for spices,” says Sethuraman. Special Agriculture Zones are in the pipeline in Kerala and Karnataka. Kerala had earmarked specific areas for specific crops such as paddy, vegetables, banana, flowers. However, these zones are designed to facilitate successful crop production, value addition and marketing and not for ‘protection’. The notion of a ‘protected’ special agriculture zone is new, says Sethuraman.Nonetheless, both Dravidian parties had made designating the delta a protected zone a part of their 2019 Lok Sabha manifestos, the result of the persistent demand and campaign of farmers from the region.
What does it entail?
Given that there is no precedent, delta farmers hope that the State will adopt a broad approach and undertake various measures to protect agriculture, thereby their livelihood, and ensure TN’s food security, as the area contributes 40 per cent of the paddy production of the state. Conservation of groundwater, measures to check intrusion of seawater into aquifers and to stop conversion of the cultivable lands into housing-commercial plots should form part of the zone, says P R Pandian, general secretary of Tamizhaga Cauvery Vivasayigal Sangam. He also hopes equipment for agriculture, storage facilities and avenues for marketing are enhanced.
“But most importantly, activities that would negatively impact ecology of the area should never be allowed,” he says. The farmers’ wishlist also includes a hope that the government provides all necessary infrastructure for the zone.Arupathy P Kalyanam, the general secretary of the Federation of Cauvery Delta Farmers Association says crop patterns should be based on the agro-climatic condition. “There should be value addition and zero waste management in the micro level in the delta districts and all farmers should be given direct subsidy as is being done in Telangana,” he says.
Noting that the CM had assured only agriculture-based industries would be allowed in the zone, K K R Lenin, president of the Movement Against Destruction, and a farmer from Pattukkottai, says the thermal power stations proposed on the coast of delta districts should not be allowed as they would affect the fisherfolk and the farmers. Similarly the Sagar Mala road scheme should not run along the coast of the delta districts, he says.
Hydrocarbon question
Although the PSAZ is undoubtedly the result of the campaign against hydrocarbon projects in the region, farmers are aware that the CM has made it clear that “no new hydrocarbon projects would be permitted”. Even as there is no official word about the contours of law and the rules of the proposed PSAZ, sources privy to the discussions going on at official levels say there would be no bar on already-functioning oil wells in the delta. “One could not ask the already operating oil wells to stop producing,” says one official. This is likely to become a sticky issue as farmers are against oil exploration as a whole, regardless of whether the project is old or new.
The “opaqueness” of the oil industry has contributed to this sentiment say protesters. “We don’t know if a facility approved for crude extraction is actually exploring for hydrocarbons such as methane, shale gas,” says Arupathy P Kalyanam, general secretary of the Federation of Farmers Associations of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts, adding all the exploration licences should be cancelled forthwith.
He justifies this demand by saying less than 1 per cent of the crude and less than 3 per cent of the gas in the country is from delta areas. “These meagre quantities could be offset by cost-effective bio-methane production by cultivating CO 4 grass. This has been adopted in California,” he argues.Sethuraman says that after the introduction of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) in 2016, gazetted in 2018, there is a uniform licence for all hydrocarbons. “You could not say the licence is only for producing petroleum crude which could be explored in conventional method,” he says, adding the licencee could use ecologically-detrimental technology such as hydraulic fracturing.
Hence it remains a grey area as to whether the licences already issued to ONGC and Vedanta to drill hydrocarbon wells would be cancelled. “ONGC has already entered into an MoU with an US company for hydraulic fracturing to produce hydrocarbon in Periyakudi field in Tiruvarur and Bhuvanagiri in Cuddalore,” says Sethuraman, wondering what the State Government would do in this case. Similarly, a vertical of Vedanta has applied for environmental clearance for 274 hydrocarbon wells in the Cauvery basin, including offshore drilling.
“Any drilling activity, which is yet to commence, should never be allowed in the Cauvery basin,” asserts Pandian. Arupathy Kalyanam is categorical that even offshore exploration would adversely affect the ecology of the Cauvery delta district and hence should never be allowed. Even the 200-odd crude oil exploration wells of ONGC in operation in the delta districts had contributed several ecological damages, including many oil spills, and should be closed, say one section of the farmers.
When it was announced in February 2017 that hydrocarbon would be explored in Neduvasal in Pudukkottai district and Karaikkal in Puducherry, protests erupted. This led to political parties taking a stand against hydrocarbon projects. The question now is whether the PSAZ would be the answer to all their prayers and pave way for an end to the ordeals of the farmers here.
Jaya’s word
It was then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who ordered suspension of the Mannargudi Coal Bed Methane project by the Great Eastern Energy Corporation Limited in July 2013 following protests from farmers. She constituted an expert committee and, based on its report, permanently banned CBM exploration by a G.O. dated October 8, 2015.