The Hindu Business Line : Will drought have a say in TN elections?

Tamil Nadu has been facing drought for three years in a row now and five successive paddy crops have failed. Although the farmers do not blame the Government for the failure of the North-East monsoon in the last three years, what has made them angry is the way the Government is tackling the drinking water scarcity that is stalking the State.

Farmers are also upset over the non-waiver of crop loans, increase in electricity tariff, imposition of additional taxes and so on. This when the money circulation has fallen consequent to the drought and loss of jobs.

Hulling mills are idle, business in grocery and textile shops is down, tea stalls are closing; construction activity has slowed down, and there is migration of labour to Tiruppur and Coimbatore, both in Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.

Wherever one travels, be it Thuraiyur, Thottappanaickanur, Musiri or Madurai, voters make uncannily similar observations: "We have no income and there is no water to drink."

Mr P. Suresh, a restaurant worker in Thuraiyur, said, "People know that Ms Jayalalithaa is not to be blamed for the drought. But she has angered them with taxes. People have no money. Business has slowed down."

Mr S. Kannusamy, a commission agent dealing with tomatoes at Thottappanaickanur in Theni district, is livid. "Ever since the AIADMK came back to power in 2001, there is no drinking water. There is no cultivation either."

Firewood became scarce, the prices of kerosene and LPG shot up, the price of tomatoes crashed and the AIADMK Government raised electricity tariff and bus fares. "There is no work because of the drought and there is no income."

A resident of a predominantly Muslim locality in Tenkasi town alleged that the municipality had increased the tax on drinking water supply. A handloom weaver in Manamedu village, near Musiri, was bitter that co-operative loans had not been waived but only its collection postponed.

Mr Kannusamy alleged that while people in villages were hard up for drinking water, the AIADMK Government spent crores of rupees on the Veeranam scheme to bring water to Chennai.

Farmers in several places echoed this view: that the AIADMK Government was partial to Chennai but did not care for the farmers in the Cauvery delta and other districts.

Mr D. Loganathan, a newspaper agent in Musiri town, was angry that while Ms Jayalalithaa met the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, to bring Krishna water to Chennai, "she did not meet Krishna (the Karnataka Chief Minister) on the Cauvery issue. Like her, he is a Chief Minister. He also stands on prestige."

A big farmer in Kulithalai in Tiruchi district put it in a different way. Farmers know that it was not the Chief Minister but nature that had to be blamed for the water scarcity. "Yet, they have a suspicion whether the stand-off in the last three years between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on the sharing of Cauvery water has anything to do with the Tamil Nadu Government's approach."

Excepting the Tamiraparani river, all rivers, tanks and ponds are dry. Irrigation wells have dried up too. Groundwater has gone down. One can see cyclists everywhere with pots of water dangling from either side of the carrier.

All kinds of vehicles are used to ferry water from a couple of km away: cycles, auto-rickshaws, push-carts and tricyles. The hunt to fetch drinking water is tedious.

Coconut trees have wilted in thousands all over the State. From Anjugramam in Kanyakumari district to Koodankulam in Tirunelveli district, grove after grove lies dead. The crowns of palm trees are gone near Melur in Madurai district, Virudhunagar and Kovilpatti.

Even the hardy `karuvela maram' (Acacia nilotica) trees have withered in Perambalur district. Banana plantations have withered away in Tiruchi and Thanjavur districts.

Since paddy could not be cultivated, lakhs of landless agricultural labourers lost their jobs. The non-production of paddy led to idling of hulling mills. Since there is no transportation of paddy to these mills by trucks, drivers and cleaners are without work. Labourers who would unload paddy bags from trucks remain jobless.

Even the fertile Kanyakumari district is having a torrid time. The big ponds such as Putheri and Parakkaikulam are dry. The Pechiparai dam, whose height is 42 feet, has only three feet of water. The wells are drying up.

If the voters' assessment on the handling of the drought by the AIADMK Government is any indication, the going is tough for the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

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