TIRUCHY: Alleging that the Union budget is casting old schemes, East Coast Coconut Farmers Association president EV Gandhi said that the newly announced Coconut promotion initiative was already under practice through the Coconut Development Board (CDB).
On the contrary, many genuine demands of the coconut farmers are not met in the budget, he said.
According to Gandhi, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's announcement of the Coconut Promotion Scheme, aimed at increasing coconut production, is nothing new. “The announcement of replacing old and non-producing trees with high-yielding saplings already exists with the Coconut Development Board. The practice of replacing non-productive trees with high-yielding saplings and distribution of seedlings has been there for a long time,” Gandhi said.
He pointed out that the coconut farmers have been demanding a branch of the farm science centre, Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Thanjavur, for the past several years.
There has been no announcement on that front, he said. New schemes, including the one for value-added coconut products, are also not new, he added.