By IANS,
Nagpur : Three more hapless agricultural families in Vidarbha in Maharashtra are in line for compassionate help — this time from celebrated Bollywood producer-director Madhur Bhandarkar — although none of them was found eligible for government help.
The three families, orphaned after their debt-trapped men Kashinath Waghmare of Buldana district, Shyamrao Kannake and his son Vinod, besides Prakash Darne of Yavatmal district respectively committed suicide, will get Rs.100,000 each from Bhandarkar at a simple function here Saturday.
The major chunk of the benign bounty comes from the prize money of Rs.250,000 the purposive director of socially relevant films like “Chandni Bar” got for his film “Traffic Signal”.
The event will take place days after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s poster women Kalawati and Shashikala got sumptuous dole from Sulabh International founder Bindeshwar Pathak.
The film maker, who was distressed to read stories of thousands of farmers in Vidarbha who have killed themselves in the last three years, identified `the most deserving’ three families with the help of friends in the media and the local administration.
None of the families was found eligible for government help though a bureaucrat admitted to IANS that they were genuine cases of acute economic distress that could not fit in the set criteria for help.
Of the farmers driven to desperation, Kashinath Waghmare of village Mondhala in Buldana district committed suicide March 1 this year, a day after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced an unprecedented Rs.600 billion loan waiver package as a part of his annual budget proposals.
Tiller of a three-acre piece of agricultural land owned by his old father, 38-year-old Kashinath was suffering from a serious stomach ailment.
With considerable amount of money spent on medical treatment, he was neither able to return the bank loan nor properly feed his family of five – wife, two daughters, a son and father — not to speak of making any provision for the daughters’ marriage.
Kashinath’s family was declared unfit for government aid as agony caused by stomach ailment was recorded as the reason for his suicide and also because he was not a ‘bonafide’ farmer, the title of the land not being in his name.
His widow Kamla tills the land now with the help of their elder son Dyaneshwar, who has given up education for full time farming.
Equally tragic is the case of the Kannake family of village Umri in Yavatmal district that suffered the shock of two suicides in a single day – 18-year old Vinod and 50-year old Shyamrao – Feb 17 last year.
Father of three sons and a young daughter Jyoti, Shyamrao was worried about provision for her marriage that was all but settled. He had told his son he would have to call it off for want of money.
Two days before the bridegroom’s family was scheduled to come for marriage negotiations, Vinod consumed poison. Shyamrao followed suit two hours later.
Shyamrao’s widow Sugandhabai incurred some private loan and married her daughter off after her husband’s suicide. Her sons Ganesh and Sunil have quit school as they have to be on the four-acre farm to help their mother.
The farmer’s suicide did not qualify for the government’s eligibility criteria for help as their agricultural land was on lease-hold.
Twenty-six-year old Sangita, widow of Prakash Darne of village Yelabara in Yavatmal district, is the third intended beneficiary of Madhur Bhandarkar’s compassion. Owner of two hectares of land with a loan of Rs.56,000 on his head, Prakash committed suicide June 28 last year.
The reason for his wife’s ineligibility for loan: Prakash was given to drinking notwithstanding the fact that he was financially distressed.
Mother of a five-year old son Pranav and two two-year old twin daughters Gayatri and Gouri, Sangita now tills the land to feed the children. Accentuating her tragedy is the fact that Gouri is visually handicapped from birth!
Kamla, Sugandha and Sangita now hope for a better morrow with the push Bhandarkar’s helping hand will lend.