By IANS
Yavatmal (Maharashtra) : A progressive farmer owning 22 acres of land became the 1,016th cultivator to commit suicide this year in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, which has become the epicentre of agrarian crisis in the country.
Narayan Uggewar, 42, Sunday consumed poison in his cotton field in Yavatmal district’s Wanjari village, about 30 km from here.
Uggewar had taken a loan of nearly Rs.100,000 from the Bank of Maharashtra after repaying an earlier loan, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti leader Kishor Tiwari said.
“He is also said to have taken an almost equal amount of loan from private sources and sown BT cotton on 18 out of 22 acres of his farm,” Tiwari told IANS.
“The yield was however poor — only 25 quintals as against 100 that he expected, mainly because the crop was destroyed by lalya, a pest that the BT strain doesn’t guard against.”
Unmitigated farm distress in the Vidarbha region continues to bedevil both the state and the central government despite seven fact-finding commissions studying the problem in great detail since 2005 and writing voluminous reports.
At least eight of this month’s 15 suicides were reported last weekend.
Two farmers who ended their lives Saturday hailed from the paddy growing Chandrapur district of eastern Vidarbha, which is not included in the prime minister’s relief package, Tiwari said.
As many as 1,662 farmers committed suicide in the six crisis-ridden districts of west Vidarbha last year as per the Maharashtra government record maintained in obedience to a high court order. Suicides by farmers, though on a much smaller scale, have also been reported from the five east Vidarbha districts.
Even while claiming that the incidence of farm-related suicides has declined, the state government set up yet another committee headed by agriculture economist Narendra Jadhav earlier this month to study the unremitting problem and suggest ways to tackle it.
Activists and experts are questioning the propriety of commissioning yet another study even as the prime minister’s office (PMO) has reportedly accepted the recommendations of a panel of three state government secretaries for modifications in the prime minister’s July 2006 relief package.