Farmers' grievance redressal meeting was hosted at the Coimbatore district collector's office today. Coimbatore collector T.N. Hariharan presided over the meeting in which farmers presented their grievance redressal petitions.
When speaking at the meeting the collector said, “Efforts are being made to provide monetary relief to the farmers who are impacted by drought. Inspection teams from state and the centre have conducted comprehensive inspections about the drought situation.”
“The average rainfall in Coimbatore district is 623.1 mm. The rainfall received up to December 2016 is 306.22mm. Anaimalai and Pollachi have received the maximum rainfall. The water level at the various dams is 3.38 ft in Sholayar dam, 57.20 ft in Aliyar dam and 11.28ft in Parambikulam dam. The area of area cultivation is 70492 hectares up to December. The food grains are planted over an area of 26041 hectares. Cholam has been planted in 20879 hectares, Corn over an area of 3870 hectares, 6761 hectares of dhal, oil crops are cultivated over an area of 4177 hectares, Chilli, Brinjal, Onions, Tomatoes are cultivated in an area of 11135 hectares.”
“The seeds that are available to be distributed to the farmers are 4080 Metric tonnes of Groundnut, 4.2010 tonnes of Urad Dhal. Toor Dhal, Green grams and 0.4100 tonnes of Corn, Barn Yard millet, are available at private and government seed go downs. 8562 metric tonnes of fertilizer is available at stock in the district. So far Rs4699.88 crores have been provided as loans to the farmers through various nationalised and cooperative banks” said the collector.
District revenue officer Thu. Venkatesan, Joint director of agriculture Chandrasekar, Personal assistant to district collector (Agri) Mohanraj Samuel, Revenue Thasildar S. Mathuranthaki, Government officials, farmers and representatives of farmers union participated in this meeting.