No Tribal farmer suicides: Maharashtra Minister is Misleading -VJAS

No Tribal farmer suicides: Maharashtra Minister is Misleading -VJAS 

Vidarbha -9th May 2015 

Farm activist group from epicenter Indian farm suicides capital most agrarian crisis hit vidarbha region  has strongly objected Maharashtra State agriculture minister Eknath Khadse statement  that Adivasis do not commit suicide because they are morally strong and his government has no solution to stop farmer suicides in the state ,terming it's as misleading and unfortunate which another attempt to make mockery of very serious issue of farmers genocide as ground reality in west vidarbha is where out of 11,000 farmers suicides who committed suicide as-per official record more than 50% farmers's are from ST ,SC and NT which are always denied institutional credit,exploited by market and money lenders and denied the assess to any Govt. welfare scheme design to address agrarian crisis ,  Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS)  convener  Kishor Tiwari  reacting on media reports  published today .

" Eknath Khadse  if he visits houses of tribal farmers of yavatmal Madhukar Pendore of village runza ,Ramesh Ghodam of village Joginkawada ,Kavdu vetti of village Mangurda ,Tanba Todsam of village boregoan ,Bhotu Meshram of village dadpapur in Yavatmal who have killed themselves in 2015  then he will understand what nonsense he is talking ,in fact agrarian crisis and introduction new technology in seed and cultivation methods and introduction of cash crops in place of sustainable drought prone food crops has affected most in this agrarian crisis and farm suicide data since 2005 in west vidarbha clearly high lights core issues of ST/SC/NT dry land  farmers who where given land and converted from land labour to landowner earlier in 1980s" Tiwari added.

if  Maharashtra State agriculture minister Eknath Khadse  give  one day time to solutions to curb farm suicides submitted them since 1998 when vidarbha cotton farmers suicides has drawn the national attention ,more than dozen commissions,committees, expert panels,state funded research groups including National commission of farmers have given very comprehensive reports and recommendations to curb farmer suicide and addressed existing agrarian crisis which is product of wrong policies of state ,he will change his hostile stand that 'we have no solution to curb farm suicide' or he should step down to so that lives of million farmers can be saved ,Tiwari asked khadase.

VJAS  has drawn attention of khadase toward   over apathy of BJP ruled govt. as for  wooing the farmers in April-end 2014, Modi had promised they would get minimum support price (MSP) with 50 per cent profit above cost of cultivation if the BJP came to power. Now that the BJP is in government, the MSP announced earlier is nowhere in sight,” he says. While speaking on the credit policy, Modi had even assured that loans would be given to farmers at their doorstep “but now banks are coming to the farmers’ doorstep to recover their dues,” taht is forcing farmers to kill themselves .

VJAS once again  highlighted fact that  the situation in India was quite different compared to developed countries like the USA, where cultivation is mechanised and irrigation is not a problem. In India, just 35 per cent of the total agricultural land is irrigated while the rest is rain-fed. Subsidies to farmers in the USA are around 30 per cent of cultivation cost, which makes a big difference in the international market and , he  accused both the Congress and BJP of “promoting globalisation” with the former doling out “packages that were a drop in the ocean.” Tiwari says the farmers appreciate Rahul has coming out to listen to them “but he has visited Vidarbha even during the Congress rule and nothing good happened to the farmers.”

 

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