Five more debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha end lives in a Day as Maharashtra budget denies aid: VJAS

Five more debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha end lives in a Day as Maharashtra budget denies aid: VJAS

Nagpur | Saturday, Mar 26, 2011,

Agrarian crisis once triggered in to spiral of innocent distressed farmers suicides who are debt-ridden and dined the basic aid as five more farmers killed themselves in day on 25^th march as reported today, the recent victims are four from Yavatmal district alone and one from adjacent chandrapur taking toll to 114 in year 2011 namely

1.Suresh Rathode of Khed

2.Ganesh Deshmukh of Marsala

3.Devidas Pandhare of Kothuralak and

4.Madhav Parothi of Machindra

all from Yavatmal District and

5.Subhash Mumngal of Awarpur in Chandrapur

Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), which works for the welfare of farmers, said in a release issued in Nagpur.

‘In the December last Maharashtra chief minister announced Rs.1000 crore ‘bail-out’ package to Maharashtra farmers who lost crop due to rain but there is no provision for the same in 2011-12 budget moreover Govt. salient over the deep driven crisis has made distressed farmers more hostile and added fuel in the despair which is serious concern will invite more debt-ridden farmers to kill themselves if immediate relief is not given’ VJAS warns the administration.

The state announcement in 2011-12 budget presented by Maharashtra finance minister Ajit Pawar on Wednesday which has ignored about 3 million debt-trapped cotton farmers is result of fresh trigger of farm suicide in the region which has claimed more than 10,000 farm suicides since 2005 due to agrarian distress and economic crisis, VJAS president Kishore Tiwari said.

As three million cotton farmers have lost cotton crop this year, it was expected that the state would address the on going agrarian crisis and will give a bailout package as the earlier relief packages were disappointing," a release highlights the reasons .

"However, the state has failed to give much awaited food security and health security to dying cotton farmers and over 10,000 farm widows and family members of farmers who committed suicide since 2005. This is much more disturbing," Tiwari added.

The vidarbha farmers welcome the decision to give zero per cent crop loan up to Rs50,000 and two percent interest up to Rs3lakh but this facility can be availed by the farmers who are regular with banks."Hence, in order to extend this facility to debt trapped farmers facing crop failure since 2009-10 in Vidarbha, the VJAS has been demanding a bailout package for those who are not covered by state-owned banks and are forced to take loans from local money-lenders and private MFIs," he said.

The VJAS also flayed the announcement of creating irrigation facility in another two lakh hector land of the state saying that there was already a backlog of irrigation projects in Vidarbha, for which over Rs60,000 crore were required.