CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam announced that the state would be declared a drought-hit state in view of deficient Northeast monsoon and central funds would be sought to deal with the situation. He also proposed certain measures, including land tax waiver for farmers to mitigate their suffering.
"Following deficient north-east monsoon rainfall in all parts of Tamil Nadu, all the districts will be declared as drought hit," he said in a statement. The announcements were made a day after reviewing the reports submitted by panels of ministers and senior officials which conducted state-wide inspection of the farming sector. Panneer said the teams had submitted their reports following which he chaired a review meeting with his senior Cabinet colleagues and Chief Secretary among others. He added that in order to manage the situation, land tax payable by farmers in all districts would be waived completely while the loans availed by them in cooperative banks would be converted into mid-term ones.
Efforts, he said would be made to convert such loans in commercial banks to mid-term loans. "Since entire Tamil Nadu is affected by drought, huge expenses will be incurred in protecting the people and therefore central financial assistance will be sought. A memorandum seeking drought relief will be sent to the Centre soon," the CM said. He also recalled an earlier Government Order on damage to crops, saying that paddy farmers and those who had sowed other irrigated crops, and have suffered over 33 per cent loss would be provided with Rs 5,465 per acre as relief while it would be Rs 7,287 for long-term crops.
'Crop cutting experiment' would be expedited to ensure farmers who had insured their crops get the money from the companies, he stated.
