Farmers seek monitoring panel to streamline hiring of harvesters

TIRUCHY: As samba harvest is nearing, Delta farmers appealed to the state government to constitute a district-level monitoring committee to streamline hiring of harvester machines and a representation was sent to the Chief Minister and Agriculture Principal Secretary on Thursday.

According to the petition, Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers Protection Association Swamimalai Sundara Vimalnathan said, the samba harvest has already commenced and the government should provide adequate number of machines. Last year, due to an inadequate number of harvesters, the farmers had undergone a series of inconveniences. Only influential farmers could make use of the available machines.

He said that due to the shortage of the machines, the private parties collected more money than the prescribed rental. Similarly, in many districts, more rental was collected even for the government machines as there is no mechanism to monitor the hiring of equipment, he said in the petition.

At this juncture, Chief Minister MK Stalin should instruct the district administrations to fix a rental amount and display them in public so there will not be any irregularity, he said.

He also appealed to establish a monitoring committee to oversee the hiring methods of the harvesters and other equipment belonging to the agricultural engineering department.

In many districts, more rental was collected even for the government machines as there is no mechanism to monitor the hiring of equipment