A month without a head: Udhayanidhi says TVK left the farmers' department leaderless
Opposition Leader Udhayanidhi Stalin has demanded a full-time Agriculture Secretary at once, saying a month has passed since the transfer with no successor, as farmers protest over water and loan relief.
Tamil Nadu's Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department has been without a full-time secretary for a month, and the Opposition says that absence is now showing in the fields. In a statement on Tuesday, Opposition Leader Udhayanidhi Stalin urged the TVK government to appoint a full-time Agriculture Secretary immediately, warning that farmers' concerns are deepening ahead of the rainy season.
He said Shankar, IAS, who served as Secretary of the department, was transferred as Commissioner of Archaeology a month ago, and no full-time successor has been named since. For a department that has its own separate Agriculture Budget, he argued, leaving the top administrative post vacant raises serious questions about the government's commitment to farmers' welfare.
The timing, he said, could hardly be worse. With the monsoon approaching, the sector needs stable leadership, swift coordination and continuous monitoring at district level, so that decisions affecting cultivators are taken promptly. Instead, he alleged, the Agriculture Minister and the Chief Minister, who should have addressed the vacancy, were occupied with other work, leaving the department with, in his words, an inactive minister and an absent secretary.
The charge goes beyond one appointment. Udhayanidhi alleged that the government has failed to honour its promise on crop loan waivers after assuming office, and that poorly planned measures have aggravated difficulties facing samba cultivation amid disruptions caused by natural calamities. Those are allegations the government has yet to answer in detail, but the protests he cited are concrete.
According to his statement, farmers blocked a road in Muthupettai on Monday, complaining that irrigation water had not reached tail-end areas. Farmers also entered Veeranam Lake in protest, demanding the release of water for cultivation. He further said a Tamil Nadu farmers' union has announced plans to lay siege to the Secretariat in Chennai on October 14, demanding a complete waiver of crop loans as promised in the election manifesto.
What Udhayanidhi is asking for is specific: an experienced senior IAS officer to lead the department, coordinate relief and grievance work, and end the delay. The question the statement puts to the government is equally specific. If agriculture matters enough for its own budget, why does it not matter enough for its own secretary, a month into the vacancy and weeks ahead of the rains?