25 Vidarbha farmers committed suicide in a week: activist

NAGPUR - As many as 25 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in the past one week in the agrarian crisis-hit Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, an activist said Monday.

“While six farmers ended their lives in the past 48 hours (since Saturday), another 19 ended their lives during the past week,” Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) president Kishor Tiwari told IANS.

In fact, five farmers committed suicide on the eve of the state budget last week, he said.

In the state budget, the state government had said that nearly two-thirds of its annual revenues go into salaries, pension and interest on the states debt burden which is slated to cross Rs.2.10 lakh crore by next year, he added.

“Accordingly, there was nothing by way of providing direct or indirect relief to the three million farmers reeling under drought in over 15,000 villages in the region, who were expecting some major policy measures from the budget. This is triggering the suicides,” Tiwari contended.

He also attributed the suicides to the “wrong policies” of the state government, such as promoting the cultivation of rain sensitive Bt. Cotton in dry areas of the state which has caused more than 95 percent crop failure, leading to huge losses for the farmers.

“We have been demanding a ban on Bt. Cotton in the dry areas since 2004 but it is being ignored by the authorities concerned. The result is there for all to see,” he said.

In the past six years, over 7,300 farmers have ended their lives in Maharashtra, Tiwari said, citing official central government figures, of which a majority were in Vidarbha and Marathwada, the dry regions of the state.

This year, the drought conditions have led to severe crop failures across the state and over 20,000 villages, including around 15,000 in Vidarbha, have been officially declared as “scarcity-hit” by the state government.

“Since the Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is busy in controversies with Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, the VJAS has appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene and take urgent steps to prevent the farmers genocide in this region,” Tiwari said.

The Vidarbha region in east Maharashtra comprises the 11 districts of Nagpur, Chandrapur, Gondiya, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Wardha, Amravati, Yavatmal, Buldana, Akola and Washim, with a total population of over 30 million.