There is nothing for farmers in DMK’s Agri Budget: EPS

CHENNAI: Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami said Tamil Nadu's Agriculture Budget will bring no benefit to farmers in the state and said it was a bundle of announcements from various departments camouflaged as Agriculture Budget.

"There were no major announcements and additional fund allocations for the sector," he said.

The Agriculture Budget is a mixture of announcements and schemes from rural development, forest, cooperatives, fisheries, animal husbandry, revenue, industries, and several other departments and there is no additional fund allocations in the budget. It is a disappointing one and there is no benefit for the farmers, Palaniswami told media persons shortly after Minister for Agriculture and Farmer's Welfare M R K Panneerselvam presented the Budget to the tune of Rs 42,281 crore for the year 2024-2025.

This government has not shown any interest in designing exclusive schemes to generate employment in agriculture and related industries in rural pockets to arrest the migration of villagers to urban areas. This explicitly shows that the DMK regime is ignoring the welfare of farmers.

"It was the fourth Agriculture budget of the DMK regime, but it did not fulfill its poll promise of enhancing the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 4,000 per MT of sugarcane. Now, the government announced Rs 215 per MT as a special incentive along with the fair and remunerative price announced by the Centre for the fiscal year," EPS said.

"The DMK announced attractive poll promises and forgot the same after coming to power. The farmers would have understood this by now," he said.

"There is no fund allocation for the Cauvery-Guntur project and Nadanthai Vaazhi Cauvery projects, which were important schemes designed and commenced by the AIADMK regime. Now, the present government is not showing interest in these schemes, " he said and added that the Sarabanga irrigation scheme that benefits four constituencies, including his own constituency Edappadi, in Salem district has been executed at a snail pace and there was no fund allocation for the same this year.

Continuing in the same vein, Palaniswami said that the inefficient DMK regime has an adverse impact on the Cooperative Sugar Mills, forcing the cane growers to opt for private mills.

"Such a trend takes place in the Agriculture Minister's own constituency itself. Nearly 2000 tons of sugarcane can be crushed in the cooperative sugar mill in Sethiyathope in a day, but the crushing has not started on time. This forced the growers to take the canes to private mills," he charged.

He continued that if the government had taken crop insurance, it would have covered the loss for the farmers, who would have received Rs 84,000 per hectare as compensation. "Hope this government will take appropriate measures in the coming years and facilitate the farmers to join crop insurance to help them in difficult times," he noted.

He also unleashed a scathing attack on the DMK government for its inability to get the due share of Cauvery water and also criticised the government for failing to release the water for irrigation at the appropriate time.