Pudukkottai Barren Lands Transmuted Into High Yielding Fertile Lands, That Too Free Of Cost

After making Tamil Nadu a leading state in many sectors, CM Stalin has now decided to increase the agricultural production of the state and bring it in the top 3 places. To make this into a reality, the Dravidian model government has taken a novel measure by formulating a separate budget for agriculture.

In the following stages, CM has set the target to rehabilitate and cultivate an additional 11.75 lakh hectares of barren land in Tamil Nadu to increase the existing cultivation area from 60% to 75% and to double the dual cropping land from 10 lakh to 20 lakh hectares in the next 10 years.

Overall, the policy of the government is to increase the yield of food grains and other crops like coconut, cotton, sunflower, sugarcane and advance the agricultural sector of Tamil Nadu to the top three places in India. The pioneer project launched to realise this dream is Kalaignar's All Village Integrated Agriculture Development Programme (KAVIADP).

The objective of the programme is to turn the Agriculture and Horticulture graduates into entrepreneurs by providing subsidies, to increase yield. As per the scheme, 16 acres of barren land in Pudukkottai was converted to cultivable land.

Moreover, a young man named Vivian Richard fulfilled his farming dream under the scheme. Vivian Richard from Keeranur opened an 'Agri Clinic' after finishing his MSc Agriculture course. He said, "As an individual aspiring to set up a fertiliser shop after studies, I benefited under the Kalaignar's All Village Integrated Agriculture Development Programme.

The intention behind the shop is to help farmers get easy access to quality seeds, pesticides and fertilisers, thereby making life easy for them. When there was financial constraint to open a shop, government authorities briefed about the scheme which gives subsidies upto 1 lakh to create young entrepreneurs. I applied and got the loan, and for the last 3 years I have been running this shop.

Farmers in our area are not aware of the basic details of technology based agriculture. After the inauguration of the Agri Clinic, more than 50 farmers visit the shop daily seeking agri-related advice."

Another young beneficiary of the scheme said, "A total of 18 acres which was lying as a garbage dump was transformed into cultivable land by planting mango saplings given by the Department of Agriculture. Drip irrigation was set up after cleaning the land and installing bore wells from which water was supplied to the plants. After 2 years, trees will start bearing fruits and after 3 years yield can be obtained. Besides mangoes, watermelon was decided to be planted as intercrop to get additional income."

Farmer Sridevi said, "My 1 acre of waste barren land was cleaned by the agricultural department who also installed bore wells, gave free electricity connection and provided a variety of saplings such as lemon, mango and guava.

Groundnut and black lentil are planned to be planted as intercrops. The thought of getting yield from the land in 2 years is making me happy. My heartfelt thanks to the government authorities who transformed my barren land into a fertile land and special thanks to CM Stalin who is trying to make Tamil Nadu green through his great efforts."

The location of the barren land is Veerapatti village in Pudukkottai district. Under the Kalaignar's All Village Integrated Agriculture Development Programme, 16 acres of barren land was transformed into cultivable land and distributed to 18 farmers.

A bore well has been set up for supply of water to the transformed land via drip irrigation which has been laid out at a cost of 1.18 lakh rupees. Since the 1020 mango saplings and 130 lemon saplings were provided free of cost, the burden of production cost has been eliminated for the farmers.

"Since the inception of the scheme, pattas for 16 acres land have been duly transferred to the names of 18 farmers which helped in avoiding ownership-related issues", said Periyasamy, Assistant Director of Agriculture, Pudukkottai district.