Chennai: Without chewing sugarcane, the Pongal celebration is incomplete. When the government dropped sugarcane from the list of gifts to rice card holders, there was a furore from cane growers which the ruling DMK would have least expected. The opposition and some of the DMK's allies too joined the chorus, forcing the Stalin government to make a climb down.
The fibrous and juicy chewing cane, dark pink in colour, is inseparable from the four-day festival that is also a component of 'Pongal seer' given to sisters by brothers. This practice is still very much in vogue in the countryside. The affluent even carry the 'seer' (comprising dress, rice, jaggery, sugarcane bundle etc) in bullock carts. Coming at the harvest season, Pongal is considered as the cultural expression of the Tamils.
After holding a consultation with officials on Wednesday, the Chief Minister ordered that sugarcane too be included in the Pongal gift. The decision was welcomed by the farmer's associations and the DMK's allies. The gift hamper would comprise a kg of raw rice and a kg of sugar. The cash gift of Rs 1000 to each rice cardholder alone would cost the exchequer Rs 2,356.67 crore. It would benefit 2.19 crore ration card holders and Sri Lankan Tamils in refugee camps.
Not surprisingly, jaggery is not on the list this time. For the last Pongal, the government distributed gift hampers containing 21 items. But, complaints were galore about the substandard goods, particularly jaggery. On dropping jaggery, PWD Minister EV Velu had a specious explanation. “Since it is sweet Pongal, sugar is given instead of jaggery. Earlier, there were complaints of jaggery melting,” he told newspersons in Madurai recently, forgetting that it is jaggery and not sugar that is the ingredient for sweet Pongal.
However, farmers expect that the government would carry out the purchase directly from them, eliminating middlemen, so that they are not given a raw deal. One a major producer of sugarcane, Tamil Nadu has witnessed a decline in the area of cultivation under sugarcane. It has come down to 25 lakh hectares from 40 lakh hectares in 2006-2007, according to official estimates. A large chunk of farmers has shifted to other crops since it is no longer a lucrative cash crop due to the escalation of input prices and labour costs. The early season of sugarcane harvest is December-January and the chewing cane growers mostly send their produce to the Pongal markets.
On the other hand, jaggery manufacturing is a local tiny industry concentrated in the districts like Salem, Trichy, Perambalur, Tirunelveli, Karur, namakkal and Coimbatore as well as Dharmapuri and Villupuram which cultivate sugarcane. Those engaged in its manufacture are a disappointed lot after the government dropped it from the pongal gift hamper. This industry too is facing problems due to shrinking cultivable area and labour shortage. “A tonne of cane is required for making 100 kg of jaggery and it costs around Rs 2000 to 2200. We get the labour force from north Indian states,” says Manoharan, a manufacturer at Rayagiri in Tirunelveli district.
Interestingly, former Chief Minister and AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was into jaggery sales when he dropped out of college and before plunging into active politics. He used to sell jaggery in the shandies in and around his native Edappadi in Salem district. No wonder, he had voiced support for cane growers and jaggery manufacturers.
