Paddy farmers in the Cauvery delta district will get an additional subsidy of Rs 17.1 crore towards cultivation cost for the coming long-term `Samba’ paddy season, according to an official press release.
This takes the total subsidy for the season to Rs 70.63 crore.
With the South West monsoon expected to set in during the third week of October, the Tamil Nadu Government has decided to release water from the Mettur Dam on the Cauvery River from September 17 to enable farmers start cultivating paddy.
The Government had earlier announced a subsidy of Rs 53.53 crore to enable farmers take up new cultivation practices for the season.
Agri dept programmes
The programmes conducted by the Agriculture Department to encourage measures like direct sowing, and raising social nurseries are on in Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Tiruchi and Cuddalore Districts.
In the last 10 days, over 2,754 acres of nursery beds are being raised and in the next 10 days, over 7,250 acres of such nurseries will be established.
Land preparation is on in 53,225 acres to take up direct sowing of paddy and seeding has been done in 47,000 acres. Paddy planting is also on in 3,000 acres.
The additional subsidy has been granted based on farmers’ feedback, the release said.
Subsidy on cultivation cost
The subsidy towards cultivation cost has been doubled to Rs 480 an acre to cover 2.50 lakh acres compared with one lakh acres earlier.
Farmers will get 30 kg of certified paddy seed for direct sowing for every acre of cultivation along with a subsidy of Rs 10 per kg; and in addition, a 50 per cent subsidy will be granted towards purchase of planting equipment, the release said.