The Hindu Business Line : Tamil Nadu blazes new trail to support small growers

TEA planters and coconut growers in Tamil Nadu must have been a twice-blessed lot with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalithaa, announcing a relief package for them, following the pattern of a larger relief to plantation industry being provided by the Centre periodically.

Though comparisons of largesse between the Centre and the State to small growers — for the persistent loss they suffered on account of poor price and other operational disabilities they had to encounter — is unfair, the gesture by the Tamil Nadu Government announcing Rs 2 per kg subsidy for green leaf tea growers for six months from July 11, 2005, is widely interpreted as a step to boost the morale of the growers.

The Small Tea Growers Safeguard scheme launched by Ms Jayalalithaa came close on the heels of the Tea Board's scheme for implementing an ad hoc price subsidy for small growers, last year, for a span of four months from February to May 2004 when they were given Rs 2 per kg of green leaf harvested by them during the same period.

Again, the Tamil Nadu Government's announcement, to procure copra through cooperatives at a price of Rs 3,570 a quintal against the prevailing price of Rs 2,900-3,000 is also designed to help coconut growers in Tamil Nadu. What is particularly noteworthy is that unlike 2000, when during the procurement of coconut benefits were cornered by traders, the State Government's recent move to ensure that no such mistake or diversion of benefits to traders is widely construed as a farmer-friendly step.

Both these steps would be in addition to what the Centre has been doing periodically for the plantation sector in the form of subsidy, special tea term loan and other measures to provide cushion to tea growers during a weak crop season.

However, with elections round the corner not only in Tamil Nadu, but also in the neighbouring Kerala, where tea and coconut are grown on larger scale, the replication of any such relief measures or demand for such gestures in that State would need to be weighed carefully, especially their impact on the brittle finances of the State Government.

But, the fact that State Governments too follow the Centre in facilitating rural development by encouraging farmers and cash crop growers has been appreciated by discerning bureaucrats who feel that the country's economic success lies in improving the rural economy. Ms Jayalalithaa has, probably, blazed a new trail in extending support to an important cash crop industry, reeling under low price and uneconomic operations.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
REI Agro's $28-m FCCB issue

Shrimp exports fall sharply post-tsunami

`Catch declining due to fishing during breeding period'

The not-so-happy harvests

Spot rubber up on bullish TOCOM

Tamil Nadu blazes new trail to support small growers

TN tea subsidy scheme `timely'

Not much to cheer

Tripartite meet on Bengal tea workers' strike tomorrow

TN announces support price for copra