Collector K. Elambahavath at the farmers grievance redress meeting in Thoothukudi Collectorate on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: RAJESH N
District Collector K. Elambahavath has made it clear that animals being referred to by the farmers as ‘wild boars’ and of invading the ranches are just ‘common pigs’ roaming along the streets and hence the affected farmers are entitled to chase these animals away from their fields.
Raising the issue at the farmers’ grievances redress meeting held at the Collectorate on Thursday, the participant farmers said the agriculturists were facing severe crop loss due to wild boar invasion into the ranches. Even though the neighbouring State of Kerala had removed the wild boar from the list of scheduled animals in the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and the animals were being hunted down in the neighbouring State, the Tamil Nadu Government had done nothing to save the farmers from wild boars.
The forest personnel replied that the animals being referred to by the farmers as ‘wild boar’ were just ordinary pigs roaming along the streets and not the wild boars, which was stoutly refuted by the farmers.
“A total of 17 agriculturists had been killed in wild boar attack in Thoothukudi district over the past several years as they tried to chase away these beastly wild animals destroying their ranches. And, the forest department registered 19 cases between 2015 and 2018 accusing the farmers of having killed the wild boars and they had to spend several lakhs of rupees for arguing their case in the court to get acquitted. Now, the forest department officials argue that the animals allegedly hunted down by the farmers are just pigs,” the farmers said.
District Collector K. Elambahavath endorsed the forest personnel and District Forest Officer M. Ilaiyaraja’s views that the crop-raiding animals were pigs and not wild boars.
“Based on the scientific analysis of the samples collected from these crop-raiding animals, we can infer that they are just pigs and hence the farmers are entitled to chase the crop-raiding animals. There will be no action or resistance from the Department of Forest against these farmers. Precisely, the official machinery will not take any action against the farmers chasing the pigs,” Mr. Elambahavath assured.
As the farmers wanted the officials to form a team exclusively for hunting down or tranquilizing the crop-raiding pigs, the officials replied that it would be considered.
When the farmers wanted permission for removing the acacia bushes from government lands, they were asked to approach the Block Development Officers concerned or the Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department and get instant permission.
When the farmers appealed to the Collector to release the matured deposits made in Kurumbur Primary Agriculture Cooperative Thrift Society and the pledged gold ornaments against which loans had been raised and repaid with interest, the Collector assured that steps have been initiated in this direction.
It may be recalled that the farmers were unable to get back their deposits and the gold jewellery pledged against their loans even after repaying the borrowings after a few office-bearers of the society had misappropriated funds.
Published – December 18, 2025 07:31 pm IST
