Drive launched to issue certificates to small and marginal farmers

Coimbatore: The agriculture department and the revenue department have launched a drive to provide small and marginal farmers certificates that are mandatory to avail benefits of state and central schemes.
As many as 2,433 documents including certificates and chittas were issued on Tuesday at the camps held at the offices of revenue inspectors in the district’s 12 blocks. The drive will be conducted again on October 20 to cover the farmers who are yet to get the certificates.
Agriculture officials said the certificates and other documents will prevent irregularities in the implementation of schemes. Often, small and marginal farmers find it difficult to get the certificates, which leads to involvement of middlemen and also occurrence of irregularities, said an agriculture official. “In order to eliminate these, we have taken the initiative along with the revenue department, under the direction of the district collector and joint director of agriculture.”
A small farmer is classified as one who holds up to five acres of land. A marginal farmer is one who holds up to 2.5 acres. Other farmers, who hold more than five acres of land, don’t need certificates to avail benefits.
The drive aims to enable small and marginal farmers avail subsidy benefits of the micro irrigation scheme and also supplementary water management activities. The state government aims to bring borewell and open well irrigated area in the state under micro irrigation by 2023-2024 and cover an additional 2.5 lakh-hectare by creating new water sources under supplementary water management activities.
The district has been allocated Rs 45 crore to implement micro irrigation scheme across 5,100 hectares. Small and marginal farmers will get 100% subsidy and other farmers, 75%. In addition, Rs 6.88 crore has been allocated for supplementary water management activities.