There is no official confirmation or authentic information on why farmers are continuing to kill themselves -- whether it's because they cannot repay their loans or because they find out they will not benefit from the budget's ambitious loan waiver scheme

Even as the UPA government works out the nitty-gritty of the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers, announced in its 2008 Union budget, farmers in Vidarbha and other parts of Maharashtra and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh continue to end their lives.

Vidarbha remains a grim statistic, with 24 farmers from the region reported to have committed suicide since February 29. Elsewhere in Maharashtra, eight farmers killed themselves.

In Andhra Pradesh, adjoining Vidarbha, 38 farmers have ended their lives since the loan waiver was announced, according to state revenue department figures.

There was no official confirmation or authentic information in Maharashtra as to why the farmers had killed themselves -- whether it was because they could not repay their loans or because they found out they would not benefit from the loan waiver scheme.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has stated on record that Maharashtra’s farmers will receive Rs 10,100 crore of the Rs 60,000 crore package.

Experts believe that the suicides are continuing because farmers in Vidarbha will not benefit much from the loan waiver so long as holding size remains the sole criterion.

Maharashtra Minister of Agriculture, Balasaheb Thorat, has said that because of poor irrigation in Vidarbha, farmers with holdings of over 2 hectares were also heavily in debt, but would not have their loans waived. On the other hand, farmers with smaller landholdings but much better irrigation facilities in western Maharashtra were likely to corner all the benefits of the loan waiver scheme.

The picture on the ground in western Maharashtra is no different. Last week, a farmer from Bavdhan village in Satara district ended his life. Dilip Shivram Bhosale’s body was found in his field on March 4. He had consumed pesticide.

This is the 84th suicide in the last one year in the prosperous Satara district of western Maharashtra. District authorities were puzzled by Bhosale’s suicide as he owned less than an acre and his loan of Rs 90,000 would have been written off under the latest scheme.

Maharashtra has seen several relief packages for farmers in recent years, but still the suicides continue.

On July 10, 2005, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, acknowledging that nearly 1,000 farmers had committed suicide in a single year, announced a package worth Rs 1,075 crore and a loan waiver of up to Rs 25,000 for marginal farmers.

Another package worth Rs 3,750 crore was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 15, 2006, after the agrarian distress in Vidarbha made headlines.

Meanwhile, in Andhra Pradesh, many of the 38 farmers who committed suicide this month were from the Telangana region, with Karimnagar and Warangal districts accounting for six farmers each.

This is the highest number of suicides in any state, in the last 10 days. “The suicides in the state and the loan waiver have no connection,” said an official trying to play down the numbers.

Ironically, he may be right considering that most of the farmers who killed themselves had lost out massively in the recent untimely rains and would not have been eligible for the waiver, which is applicable to loans only up to December 2007.

Farm leaders claim the number of suicides is actually much higher than reported. Though the suicides in Andhra Pradesh tapered off in 2005, they rose again in 2007.

A young farmer Jayarami Reddy (35) of Marrikunta village in Kurnool district and his wife Saraswati committed suicide three days after the loan waiver announcement when they realised they did not qualify for it.

Satyanarayan Reddy of Kodur village, Krishna district, had 4 acres of land and his loans from private moneylenders totalled Rs 2 lakh. The local moneylender succeeded in getting him arrested, resulting in two months’ rigorous imprisonment for the farmer. After his release, his creditors threatened to send his wife to jail. This proved too much for the 45-year-old farmer who committed suicide on March 9.

Narne Rama Rao (45) of Vangaturu village in Prakasam district had leased 50 acres to plant groundnut. But the rains wiped out the crop resulting in a loss of Rs 12 lakh.

The Andhra Pradesh government’s assessment was that the loan waiver for small and marginal farmers would benefit at least 12 lakh farmers out of the 1.20 crore farmers in the state.

Source: DNA, March 12, 2008
             The Indian Express, March 12, 2008