TIRUCHY: Farmers across the region staged a protest on Tuesday against the Union government and the State government on various issues, especially the fertiliser price hike and discriminatory crop loan waiver.
The Union government hiked the prices of fertilisers, including Potash, Complex, Sulphate and Factamfos, thereby increasing the input cost. Protesting across districts, the farmers demanded that the hike be withdrawn immediately. At the same time, they raised slogans against the State government for its discriminatory crop loan waiver announcement.
The protesting farmers said that they have already been affected by the production cost, and as per the scale of finance recommendation, the farmers have to spend Rs 38,300 per acre.
At this juncture, the fertiliser prices were hiked by the Union government, which is yet another blow to the farming community. They said that the farmers widely use the fertilisers like potash, complex fertiliser, sulphate and factamfos, and the price hike on these fertilisers would result in double the production cost. So they demanded to withdraw the hike with immediate effect.
The farmers also said that the Tamil Nadu government had waived the crop loan based on the category, and the categorising of marginal and small farmers would lead to further confusion among the farmers, as the actual farmers would not get any benefit.
“We need a total waiver of the crop loans as per the promise given to the farmers during the election campaign. Similarly, several farmers were not given crop loans citing various reasons, and so they availed jewel loans, and the government should write off the jewel loans availed for agricultural purposes,” PS Masilamani, General Secretary, Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, who presided over the protest in Thanjavur, said.
Similar protests were held in Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, Tiruchy and Pudukottai districts also.
Meanwhile, farmers who attended the grievances redressal meet held at Udayarpalayam Division in Ariyalur came blindfolded on Tuesday, condemning the state government for failing to fulfil the promise of crop loan waiver.
The farmers from Jayankondam, T-Pazhur, Senthurai, Andimadam and Udayarpalayam who took part in the grievances redressal meet, chaired by the RDO (In-charge) Prema, in which the farmers raised concerns about the recent announcement of crop loan waiver by the state government. They said that the state government had discriminated against the farmers and failed to fulfil the promises given to them during the election, and this disappointed the farmers across the state. After registering their protest, they boycotted the meeting.
While speaking to reporters, the farmers said that the Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay had promised to write off all the crop loans during his election campaign. But he failed to fulfil the promises. They demanded that the Chief Minister withdraw the present loan waiver announcement and make a fresh order waiving all the crop loans as per the promise.
They also threatened to stage a statewide protest and campaign against the TVK government if the revised announcement was not made.