Objective:   Work for Change
The declined livelihood
I am a social activist working for palmera tappers and fisher folk of Gulf of Mannar covering both Ramanathapuram and Thoothukudi districts of Tamil Nadu, India. Geographically the region is semi arid, mainly depending on rain fed agricultural.  Generally agriculture will be  practised from mid October to mid January i.e. during northeast monsoon.
Since northeast monsoon usually brings cyclonic rain, which results in uncertain yielding of produces. Hence the people of region deprived of permanent livelihood.
The region has different livelihood for the survival of the people. The blocks of Kadaladi, Thiruplani of Ramanathapuram and Vilathikulam of Thoothukudi  districts has plenty of palmera trees. The people of the region identified palmera is source of income, more over, it with stand hot climate of the region.
Palmera tapping:
Palmera tapping is occuring at least last 2 or 3  centuries. The history of palmera tappers gos back to at least 3 to 4  centuries. Most of them migrated from Kanyakumari  or Tirunelveli districts to tapp the palmera trees.
Palmera tapping is tedious process, which demands hard phisical work of entire family. While man is climbing tree the  woman of the family will make jaggary out of neera. In Tamil jaggary called karuppatti. To collect small amount of neera one has to climb the tree 3 times in a day. In this process the able body man can clime at the most 30  to 40 trees in a day.

The neera is collected daily to prevent from spoiling.  The women of the community cook the neera over firewood, add calcium, pour the mixture into coconut shells, and leave them to dry to form jaggery – an unrefined whole cane sugar. Ten kilograms, or one kotum, of jaggery is bundled into a thatch carry bag and sold for 400 to 600 rupees.

Palmyra tapping is seasonal occupation usually, starts from mid January to mid August, In Tamil calendar i.e. from the month of thai to adi. Vembar Karuppatti is famous one, which attracts all types of people. Karuppatti uses for consumptions and has medicinal values.

The exploitation tappers faced was similar to fishermen; however, it was even more alarming because they were being forced to not only sell their jaggery to merchants at below-market rates, but also at high interest rates (accumulates to 24 percent in a year and is added to the principal amount at the year end), to compensate for their use of the land and the tree (owned by the merchant).

The age-old livelihood, which is said by the villagers to be near extinction because of various reasons. 

Since government banned on toddy tapping, which reduce the income of the age old community. 

The lack of storage facilities by the tappers make them more vulnerable to merchants. 

There is no any technical development to reduce the hardships of the poor tappers. 

The health hazardous of women is high due to use of firewood choola for jaggary making. 

Social tappers are considered lowest in the social strata even people are hesitant give the girl for marriage. 

There is adequate social welfare measures from the government.

For the above-mentioned reasons the community is itself abandoning the age-old livelihood, accommodated major chunk of the population of the region.