Tamil Nadu: Revise compensation fixed a decade ago, seek farmers
According to the farmers, the compensation amount used to be fixed based on the possible input cost and this amount was fixed in 2014 during the National Calamity Council meeting.
Thanjavur Joint Director of Agriculture G Vidya inspecting damaged crop
TIRUCHY: The announcement of Crop Damage Assessment of Rs 20,000 per hectare is inadequate as it was fixed in 2014 as per the cost of inputs, and the amount should be revised to Rs 35,000 per acre, urged Cauvery Delta farmers.
According to the farmers, the compensation amount used to be fixed based on the possible input cost and this amount was fixed in 2014 during the National Calamity Council meeting.
“Now, the cost of cultivation has been tripled, and so the compensation too should be revised accordingly,” said Cauvery S Dhanapalan, General Secretary, Cauvery Farmers Protection Association. He pointed out that the cultivation cost in 2014 stood at Rs 8,200 per acre, but now it stands at Rs 40,200 per acre as per the scale of finance work out.
“In this scenario, the fixation of Rs 20,000 per hectare (Rs 8,100 per acre) can not match even 50 per cent of the cultivation cost,” Dhanapalan said.
As the crop had been damaged in the very early stage, the entire cultivation is lost, and so the state government should recommend the Centre to revise the crop damage compensation, which is comparatively very meagre," he said.
He also appealed not to categorise the damage based on the condition.
“The restriction of 33 per cent above itself is not fair. This would prevent many farmers from availing crop compensation. If the entire Delta region is declared a natural disaster hit region, this would be beneficial for the farmers who lost their crops,” Dhanapalan added.
