Close on the heels of Cyclone Gaja which devastated the four districts of Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Puthukottai and Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu is in for another disaster in the form of an indefinite agitation by the Government employees and teachers .
More than four lakh employees and teachers under the banner of Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Organisations and Government Employees Organisation (JACTO-GEO) will come out to the streets from Tuesday morning demanding the restoration of the old pension scheme and regularising the services of those who have been working on temporary basis since 2003. They also want the State Government to pay them salary which is equivalent to that of their counterparts in the Central Government.
The decision to strike work from Tuesday comes as a culmination of the six month long stand-off between the Government and the employees. Though Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy pleaded with the union leaders not to strike work and requested them to help the Government in the relief and rehabilitation works associated with Cyclone Gaja, the union leaders were adamant on their decision to go ahead with the agitation.
Situation in the four districts devastated by Cyclome Gaja in November continues to be pathetic. Accessibility to the villages continues disrupted because of the trees and electric posts uprooted in the cyclone.
The entire mango trees in Vedaranyam and Nagapattinam have been uprooted along with other cash crops like coconut, tamarind and amla.
“The famous varieties of Neelam and Banganapalle mangoes will not be available for the next two decades. It usually takes 20 years for a mango plant to bear fruit,” said Kattimannatkoil Kannan, general secretary, Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association who is leading a team of rescue and relief providers in the regions devastated by Gaja.
Speaking to this newspaper over telephone from Vedaranyam, he said three lakh acres of coconut plantations have been devastated by the cyclone. “All coconut trees in these plantations were uprooted and the farmers may have to spend a fortune to remove the debris. The farmers, most of them small and medium farmers are literally broken,” said Kannan.
Tamil Nadu has been at the receiving end of nature’s fury since 2015. The deluge of December 2015 which almost washed away Chennai suburbs is still fresh in the minds of the people. The years 2016 and 2017 saw cyclones Vardah and Ockhi causing havoc all over the State resulting in death and destruction. The population is yet to get over from these disasters when Gaja struck.
Pakkirisamy in a Nagapattinam village is a living martyr as he has lost all his cash crops spread in 1.5 acres of land. “A mango tree will yield one tonne mangoes per annum. One kilogram mango costs Rs 20. Fruit traders from all over south India come here to buy mangoes from us and that was our only source of income. It is all gone,” said Pakkirisamy to a team of journalists.
One of the farmers, lamenting the destruction caused by the cyclone said that he used to earn Rs 15,000 per month from a single amla tree. “Now we are at the mercy of the Government for cutting the fallen trees to make the ground ready for planting fresh seedlings,” he said.
According to Kannan, the cyclone uprooted more than 1.1 million trees and 1 lakh electric posts. “Nearly 200 substations and 900 transformers have been destroyed in the cyclone,” said Kannan.