Abstract

The Government of Tamil Nadu during June 2015 had announced the “Kuruvai Special Assistance 2015 for Delta Districts” programme to boost rice production and productivity in the state. Among others, promotion of ‘Machine Transplantation’ of rice seedlings was one of the main components of this special package. To assess the success of this programme, a study was conducted to assess the impact of mechanical planting versus conventional planting, cost and returns, and feedback of farmers. The comparative economics of conventional and machine planting revealed the following: yield increased by nearly 40.00%; cost of cultivation decreased by 21.00%; cost of production reduced by 43.00% and ultimately net returns increased by more than four times (448.00%), over the manually planted fields. Farmers’ feedback on machine planting was very optimistic with all the beneficiaries expressing that they had opted for machine planting to overcome labour scarcity, and to increase their yields. Major merits perceived by the beneficiaries included: mental agony due to rice cultivation had reduced significantly, significant increase in productive tillers, and reduction in seed rate which led to decrease in cost of production. On the whole, it was found that nearly two-third (65.00%) of the beneficiaries were cent per cent satisfied with the government initiative.