Pondy Admn to provide compensation to farmers

Puducherry, Apr 2: The Puducherry administration is taking steps to provide adequate compensation to the farmers in Puducherry and Karaikal regions who lost their crops in the recent rains, Agriculture Minister V Vaithilingam told the Legislative Assembly today.

Replying to the members demand to provide compensation to the affected farmers during Zero Hour, Mr Vaithilingam said crops in 5,577 hectares in Karaikal and 2,185 hectares in Puducherry were damanged in the recent rain.

The administration had sought all details of the compensation given in Tamil Nadu and act accordingly. It had also written to the Centre in this regard, he added.

The members, who wanted the government to give immediate assistance, urged it to announce in the House itself.

DMK member R Siva alleged that not even a minister visited the affected areas to have an on-the-spot account of the sufferings of the farmers, while Mr Vaithilingam had visited Karaikal for eight days after the rain.

When Welfare Minister M Kandasamy and Congress member Namasivayam defended the ministers, the House plunged into noisy scenes.

Speaker R Radhakrishnan informed that none of the comments would enter into the Assembly records and restorede order in the House.

Earlier, AIADMK member A Anbazhagan, Na Ra Kalainathan (CPI) and Thyagarajan (Congress) expressed concern over the undue delay in providing compensation to the affected farmers and urged the administration to immediately provide it.

UNI