‘Anti-farmer schemes should not be implemented in Tamil Nadu'
In a statement here on Saturday, periyakkam's general secretary K. Venkatraman said the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti had taken up a pilot project of modernisation of irrigation network and had proposed to levy tax on farmers for usage of water for irrigation.
Objecting to the move to levy tax on water used by farmers, Mr. Venkatraman said that already farmers were aware of the disadvantages of continuous operation of bore wells for irrigation. Such being the case, it would not be fair to tax farmers for using water for irrigation. He called upon the State government not to encourage or implement schemes proposed by the Union government that might affect farmers and declare categorically that the proposal would not be implemented in the State.
Meanwhile, official sources said the proposal, being implemented as pilot project in select States, was aimed at modernisation of the irrigation network in a designated cluster.
The objective was to create a robust back-end infrastructure for micro irrigation by farmers from established source to the farm gate up to one hectare with underground pressured piped irrigation. The use of SCADA, Internet of Things technology will be adopted for water accounting and water management and increase water usage efficiency at the farm level.
Regarding the issue of levy of tax, sources added that Union Minister of Jal Shakti C.R. Patil had clarified that there was absolutely no provision under this pilot project nor any directive from the Government of India to impose user charges on farmers for water usage.
Further, it was emphasised that both 'agriculture' and 'water' were State subjects and any decision regarding the collection of user charges, if to be collected, from water user associations or beneficiaries of this scheme, shall rest solely with the respective State governments implementing the scheme, sources added.
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