1000 farmers from Kuttanad to stage fast-unto-death

Thiruvananthapuram : One thousand farmers from Kuttanad will stage a fast-unto-death agitation in front of the State Secretariat here on September 28.

Addressing a press conference here, Salimkumar of Chambakkulam Paddy Production Society today said the agitation was against the delay in fulfilling the government promise of Rs 20,000 compensation for every hectare of the crop lost by the farmers in Kuttanad.

Alleging that the compensation was not received by the farmers, he said the government cheated the farmers by putting a condition that Rs 20,000 would be given for uninsured crops and Rs 12,500 for the insured crops only.

Many farmers in the region seem to have decided not to launch cultivation, protesting the ''indifferent attitude'' of the authorities towards the paddy sector.

The farmers, who had insured their crop,too,were in distress.

None of them had benefitted from the insurance cover for the huge crop loss this year,he claimed.

The farmers at Chambakulam Panchayat could harvest only 400 quintals of paddy from about 70 acres of paddy fields against its actual production capacity of 2,340 quintals, he pointed out.

He said 70 per cent of the paddy crop had been lost in the summer rain, with the loss put at Rs.48,000 a hectare.

So the farmers felt that the government policy on compensation was deceptive.

The heavy rain had dealt a heavy blow to the crisis-ridden paddy sector in the region during the harvest season, he added.

The farmers here are concerned at the sharp rise in fertilizer prices and its widening demand-supply gap, he said.