Kerala MPs seek protection to rubber, coconut farmers

New Delhi, Apr 27 (UNI) Senior MPs from Kerala today appealed to the Centre not to allow import of natural rubber and edible oil as it would affect the rubber and coconut farmers of the state.

The issue was raised during zero time by Mr N N Krishnadas (CPI-M) who asked the government to cancel its decision to import natural rubber from Thailand.

He complained that the decision to import natural rubber was taken without studying the demand-supply position in the domestic market in India.

Kerala-Congress-Joseph member Francis George said the 10 per cent duty cut on imported palm oil would affect the coconut farmers.

Though Finance Minister P Chidambaram had justified the decision saying that it was to correct the mismatch in demand-supply position of edible oil, it was sure to affect the coconut growers in Kerala and other states.

He said there was no need for import of natural rubber as there was an excess stock of 50,000 tonnes.

Mr George said Thailand produced 2.8 million tonnes of natural rubber, but its domestic consumption was only 300,000 tonnes.

CPI(M) member P Karunakaran also asked the government to come to the rescue of rubber and coconut farmers.

Earlier, Mr P C Thomas (Kerala Congress-Joseph) alleged that the Railway Ministry had done injustice to Kerala by allowing the Palakkad railway division to be divided into two with the creation of Salem division in Tamil Nadu as its headquarters.

He alleged that the new Salem division had been transferred 60 per cent of the portions earlier with the mother division at Palakkad.

Mr Thomas said though Railway Minister Lalu Prasad had promised to sort out the differences between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over the creation of the Salem division, he had not convened the promised meeting between the Chief Ministers of both the states even after the lapse of three months.

Senior CPI member C K Chandrappan appealed to the Centre to send a team to Kerala to assess the loss of lives and damages caused to standing crops and property due to the recent unseasonal rains accompanied by storm and thunder.

He made a strong case for providing sufficient relief to Kerala to tackle this situation.

UNI