Ten farmers in Vidarbha committed suicide in the past 48 hours

Mumbai: It was a gloomy Makar Sankranti or harvest festival on Thursday in the agrarian community of Vidarbha in Maharashtra where ten more distressed farmers have committed suicide.

The region, which has already seen more than 11,000 farmers’ suicides since 2005, experienced yet another tragedy with official reports stating that ten farmers took their own lives in the past 48 hours.

The number of suicide deaths among farmers has already reached 29 in the new year, whereas 1,142 farmers committed suicide in 2014, according to Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) convener Kishor Tiwari on Friday.

VJAS, which represents farmers, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the Vidarbha agrarian crisis with the situation is getting worse day by day and relief of Rs20 billion (Dh1.8 billion) announced by the state administration is yet to be disbursed.

The organisation also believes the relief amount is too low as it is being disbursed to eight million drought-hit farmers from around 25,000 villages across Maharashtra.

Tiwari said: “On Wednesday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting of Central Assistance to States affected by Natural Disasters in Delhi, which was attended by Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley. But Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh, who was also present, did not take up the Maharashtra farm crisis for discussion even though the state has asked for urgent relief of Rs39.80 billion. This is very unfortunate and has only fuelled the crisis resulting in farmers’ suicides.”

He pointed out how, last year, in the national and station elections, Vidarbha farmers voted the BJP to power only because Modi promised to end the sad saga of farmers’ suicides by addressing the issue of the agrarian crisis. He dealt with the core factors that would help the farmers — cost, credit and selection of sustainable crop by providing minimum support price as per the formula of investment plus 50 per cent profit.

Modi’s also took up the waiver of farm loans to all debt-trapped distressed dry land farmers and promotion of sustainable crop pattern. “Despite the experts placing the likely solutions on the table, nothing much has been done even after eight months of the BJP coming to power,” said Tiwari. That is why the farmers want the prime minister to now fulfil his election promises and stop the never-ending pathetic story of farmers’ suicides.