Seeks sanction of additional allocations to commodity boards

The United Planters Association of Southern India on Monday requested the Centre to sanction additional allocations for the commodity boards to enable them to disburse the overdue amounts to South Indian plantations immediately. This would go a long way in helping the South Indian growers tide over the critical financial crisis they are in today, to some extent, UPASI President AL RM Nagappan said in a statement here.

Stating that substantial amounts are outstanding to the growers towards approved schemes of the commodity boards, he said in tea alone, Rs 55 crore is due as of now for South India. Allocations to the boards were curtailed year after year and the meager additional allocation made to them in the current budget will not be sufficient to clear at least the pending dues, he pointed out.

The plantations are going through quite a stressful period as they face the agrarian distress due to climate change and not able to fetch a remunerative price for the plantation commodities, Nagappan said. A majority of estates are making huge losses and struggling to carry out day-to-day operations and make timely wage payments to workers and prospects of improvement in prices in the near future are bleak and they look forward to the government's immediate intervention, he said.