Farmers from various associations began an agitation on Wednesday, demanding that the government provides Rs.30000 per acre relief to farmers who lost their paddy crop owing to the recent rains, as well as Rs.10000 to agriculture laborers who lost their livelihood due to the rain.
Protesters from the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association and the All India Agriculture Labour Association staged the agitation in front of the Thanjavur district collector's office. They demanded compensation from farmers who had lost their cattle and poultry also on a war-footing. Several mud and thatched dwellings were damaged as a result of the floods during the rains that lasted for more than 10 days in the delta districts. The government should construct concrete dwellings for those who lost their homes due to the rain, the protesters demanded, in addition to compensating them.
The Union government should grant crop insurance to farmers who paid their premiums for the fiscal year 2020-21. All water bodies and canals should be adequately desilted, and encroachments along the channels should be removed immediately.
The demonstrators demanded that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGS) scheme should also be implemented in town panchayats and to benefit more agricultural laborers.
Speaking to reporters, A Lasar, state president of the All India Agriculture Labour Association and a former MLA, and T Raveendran, state deputy president of the Tamil Nadu Farmers' Association, said that the state government should consider their demands because the rains had affected thousands of farmers.
Over 5 million hectares of agricultural area was affected due to heavy rains during 2021. The 50.4 lakh hectare area was affected due to cyclonic storm / flash floods / floods / landslides / cloudburst and others was from a total of 20 states.
Karnataka was the most devastated, with crop losses of 1.4 million hectares, followed by Rajasthan (679,000 ha), West Bengal (690,000 ha), Bihar (580,000 ha), and Maharashtra (455,000 ha). According to the minister, other states included Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha.
Rains have wreaked havoc on nearly all of these states, which got either a 'large excess' or 'excess' of rainfall last year.
