Mumbai: Maharshtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered an inquiry into the death of 18 farm workers by pesticide poisoning in the cotton fields of Yavatmal district, Vidarbha region. He said the inquiry will be conducted by Additional Chief Secretary, Home, and also announced Rs200,000 (Dh11,212) for the next of kin of the deceased.
He assured that free masks will be distributed to farm labourers and an awareness campaign will be initiated.
However, state Congress leader Radhakrishn Vikhe Patil has demanded the state government form a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the case and also penalise the pesticide manufacturers who should be tried for homicide and made to pay substantial compensation to the victims. No safety kits were provided to the workers, he said.
Patil said though the matter was very serious, neither the state’s agriculture commissioner nor the authorities concerned visited Yavatmal to take stock of the situation to prevent further deaths. “The Department of Agriculture as well as Health Care should have created awareness on pesticide spraying,” Patil said.
Nagpur-based farm leader Kishor Tiwari, who heads a task force to deal with farm distress, said: “Apart from the 18 deaths of innocent tribal farm workers and farmers, more than 600 cases of inhalation of poisonous pesticides have been reported in the last 18 days in the suicide-ridden district of Yavatmal.”
He blamed the indiscriminate and faulty use of “wrong combinations of pesticides and direct and extended exposure without any protective gear for days together to insecticides that have resulted in the death of farmers.”
However, the core issue “is related to genetically modified Bt cotton seeds that are supposed to be resistant to bollworm and other infestations which failed to serve the purpose and resulted in the use of massive spray of pesticides,” Tiwari said.
The farm labourers engaged in spraying the cotton crop wanted to cover as much area as possible in a single day to earn more, he said. “Also, they end up working for 8-10 hours a day at a stretch whereas they should be working just in the morning hours without eating or drinking.” But the farmers take breaks for smoking, tobacco chewing or drink water with the same hands that they are spraying with without washing hands.
After visiting the families of the deceased, Tiwari learnt that first the farm workers’ eyes were affected but they went to hospital only when they started vomiting, had loose motions and breathing problems.
