Massive palmyra seeds planting drive in Tamil Nadu

KARUR: The Tamil Nadu Government has allocated a sum of Rs 24 lakh for supplying six lakh Palmyra seeds to rain-fed area farmers in Karur district during the current year as part of the State Government’s plan of planting 2.5 crore Palmyra seeds across the state at a cost of Rs 10 crore, according to Karur collector T. Anbazhagan.

In a release here on Monday, Mr. Anbazhagan pointed out that under the mission on sustainable dry-land agriculture, during the current year, it is proposed to plant two crore Palmyra seeds at an estimated cost of Rs 8 crore across the state, by the Agriculture and Horticulture departments.

He said the Government has also allocated Rs 12 lakh for supplying 0.6 lakh various tree saplings like teakwood, tamarind,  to the rain-fed farmers of Karur dt free. Meanwhile, ‘Green Needa’, Needamangalam-based environment NGO and Jeddah Tamil Sangam, Saudi Arabia, jointly renovated a local water tank and handed it over to the villagers of Kaanur near Needamangalam on Sunday.

In a release, ‘Green Needa’ founder M. Rajavelu said the commencement of sowing 2,000 Palmyra tree seeds in and around the local water tank was also to create a Guinness record.

Inaugurating the event, Mannargudi DMK MLA T R B Raja hailed the joint efforts of ‘Green Needa’ and Jeddah Tamil Sangam towards a common cause.Among others, office-bearers of the NGO, K R K Janaki Raman, and of Jeddah Tamil Sangam, Sirajdeen, Abdul Ajiz, Rafia, Vijayan and Ramanan, participated.