MADURAI: Farmers in Thoothukudi district want to avail themselves of online service for buying tractors at subsidised cost for agriculture.

While southern parts of the district follow an irrigation system, farmers in northern parts of Thoothukudi solely rely on rainfed cultivation of pulses, millets, oilseed and other cash crops.

“Unlike those days of farming practice when bulls were used for ploughing fields, now the farmers are driven by the inevitable need for tractors for farming and, more importantly, to increase agricultural productivity,” A Varadharajan, president of Karisal Boomi Vivasayigal Sangam, Thoothukudi district said on Tuesday.

While the well-off could have a tractor on their own, the small farmers could hardly afford rental tractors.

Farm inputs and agriculture engineering equipment were being provided at subsidised rates based on online submission of Aadhaar card, patta and ‘adangal’, but the same was not applied for farmers who wish to buy subsidised tractors.

“The lack of online service for subsidised tractors was felt much by the small and genuine farmers since the much sought-after farming tractors were given to politically influential farmers,” he said.