RAMANATHAPURAM: Despite inspections conducted by officials from various departments concluded that 73% of Samba paddy crops cultivated in the district were ‘completely damaged’ due to a drought-like situation, the delay in disbursal of compensation by the state government has got the farmers’ goat. Claiming that the district is being discriminated against by the government, the farmers have announced indefinite protests from Monday.
What began as a promising season (cultivation was taken up on 1,35,859 hectares of area), fizzled out quickly owing to irrigation woes aggravated by a deficit monsoon. Subsequently, officials from the agriculture department held a preliminary inspection and said crops on over 84,000 hectares suffered more than 33% damage.
Based on their report, a special team comprising revenue officials visited the district for crop damage enumeration, recalled collector Johnny Tom Varghese. “They found that crops on 98,314 hectares (73% of total paddy cultivation) were completely damaged. Earlier in March, the revenue department commissioner, agriculture department secretary and survey department officials also held separate inspections. Further, 40.58 hectares of maize was also found to be affected by the drought condition,” he added.
The enumeration report was then submitted to the state government for sanctioning a compensation of Rs 132.71 crore from the disaster management fund for the farmers. “We will take steps to expedite the compensation disbursal,” Collector Varghese said.
Gavasker, a farmer and activist, said, “Our crops withered away in December. Three months have passed and we have been provided with no relief. The state government has already distributed compensation for the delta districts, but the assistance for our district is still pending. Demanding the government to release compensation for us at the earliest, the farmers have decided to stage indefinite strikes from Monday in RS Mangalam and Thiruvadanai. The protests will continue until we receive the compensation.”
