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water crisis, nor does he haveincome from other sources.Agriculture is no more eco-nomically sustainable, hecomplained.

The story of Radhakrish-nan, a farmer in Musakulam,a village tucked away from

the main road and locatedabout 5 km from Tiruvarur, isequally distressing. Thoughhe owns two acres, Radhak-rishnan lives a difficult life.

Without water, the crops arewilting and his family of fourlives off the free rice the Stategovernment gives through itsration shops.

Had my field been near

the main road, it would havebeen worth many lakhs ofrupees. Real estate peoplewould have lined up to buy itto convert it to housing plots.

What to do we are stuck inthis small village, Radhak-rishnan said.

He has reasons to lamentso. At Semmozhi Nagar, ahousing colony on the mainroad to Tiruvarur and 2 kmaway form Radhakrishnansfarm, the developers havesold all the plots. Those whoown are reselling them at aprice of about Rs.350 sq.ft.This makes the area, once afarmland, worth about Rs.1.5

crore an acre. The land pricesescalate further as one ap-proaches the town. In con-trast, Radhakrishnanstwo-acre farm is worth onlyabout Rs.2 lakh.

Even projects in small vil-lages such as Amma Cha-

tram, far away fromKumbakonam, the price ofresidential plots are as highas Rs.575 sq.ft. as againstRs.27 per sq.ft. for a farmlandlocated a little further away.Such conversions have re-sulted not because of the or-ganic growth of the place, butdriven more by speculativeinvestment. This is evi-

denced by the fact that only afew houses are built in themany colonies and vacantplots are regularly resold.

Mannachanallur, a villagecloser to the Kollidam rivernear Tiruchi, is an illustrativeexample to understand the

consequence of farmlandconversion. This place wasonce a well-known rice bowland the local variety was verypopular. Over the years,farmlands have turned intohousing plots and agricultu-ral production has signifi-cantly dropped. PrabhaRaman, a wholesale rice deal-er in Tiruchi, points out that

THANJAVUR: Pushed by unset-tling agricultural conditionsand pulled by lucrative realestate deals, farmers acrossthe famed and fertile Cauverydelta in Tamil Nadu are sell-ing their lands to real estate

developers. In Amma Cha-tram, Marudhanallur, Tirun-ageswarm, Mathur, and in ahost of other villages in Than-

javur and adjacent districts,farmlands are being convert-ed to residential plots at a gal-loping rate.

The agricultural uncertain-ties have multiplied this yeardue to poor supply of waterand the power situation, andreal estate appears to be theexit option for farmers.Though worried about thesituation, farmers are notcomplaining, and the reasonsare not hard to find.

Do not the let the greencolour deceive you. The fieldshave crops but they are wilt-ing. There is not enough wa-ter now to see the cropsthrough, S. Thangappan, afarmer in Maruthhuvakudinear Aduthurai, cautioned.Three crops a year is a thing

of the past. If we are lucky, wecan have one good crop. Anacre of agricultural land cannormally yield about 30 to 35bags of rice and our averageprofit would be Rs.6,000 toRs.7, 000 per acre. Mind you,this income comes after weharvest the crop and not ev-ery month. This year has beenthe worst and we would notbe able to recover whateverwe have spent, he explained.

Thangappan would surviveand may even continue farm-ing. He is a retired truck driv-er and gets pension. No suchoptions exist for the 55-year-old Rajakannuof Manalmedunear Pasupathi Koil. He ownsless than an acre of land closeto the Kudamuruti river. Hecannot spend money on drill-ing a bore to tide over the

it is difficult to find the localrice in the market. He ex-plained that more than 70per cent of what is sold hereand in other places in TamilNadu is from Karnataka.They are cheap andpreferred.

In 2011, the government

amended the regulations tomake conversion of wetlandsdifficult. Anyone wishing tochange the land use had toget the permission of the dis-trict collector. The State gov-ernment claimed that thiswould deter indiscriminateconversion, but, like otherbuilding rules, this too is fol-lowed in the breach.

Unauthorised

conversions

A revenue official in Kum-bakonam said that peoplehardly sought approval. Un-authorised conversions arerampant and a major sourceof local corruption. A sellernear Kumbakonam was in-genious. He applied for ap-proval to convert 9.5 acres offarmland to 140 residentialplots. After receiving the ap-proval, he quietly annexedthe adjacent land and divided

it into another 100 plots.Between 1971 and 2006,

land under paddy cultivationhas reduced by 6 lakh hec-tares. The much awaited re-sults of the 2011 agriculturalcensus are expected to showfurther decline.

It may be unfair to stop thefarmers while allowing urbandwellers to benefit from theland value appreciation, par-ticularly when agriculture is

becoming difficult to pursue.At the same time, as the Stateagricultural plan, drafted bythe Tamil Nadu AgriculturalUniversity in 2009, projectsan additional 7 lakh hectareshas to be brought under cul-tivation by 2020 to meet thedemand for rice. Addressingboth the issues is going to bea tough challenge.

Fertile farmlands vanish in Cauvery

delta as realty deals entice farmers

CAUSE FOR CONCERN: The inset picture, taken in 2011, shows signs of construction activity beginning inthe middle of agricultural fields near Thanjavur. The recent picture shows more fertile lands on theoutskirts of the same town ready for residential development. PHOTOS: B. VELANKANNI RAJ

A. Srivathsan

Farmers are opting for the real estate option due to poor agricultural conditions