Men of letters, unmoved readers- P. Sainath-HINDU

Men of letters , unmoved readers

P. Sainath

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Suicide notes in Vidarbha are at times addressed to the Prime Minister, the desperate last cries of voices that went unheeded when alive.

Seeking authenticity for his letter to the Prime Minister and the President, Ramachandra Raut composed it with care on Rs.100 non-judicial stamp paper. Then he added a few more addressees, including his village sarpanch and the police, in the hope that it got home someplace. Then he killed himself. A mere digit in the nearly 250 farm suicides that hit Vidarbha in four months; but a villager desperate to be heard on the reasons for his action: “The two successive years of crop failure is the reason.” Yet, “bank employees came twice to my home to recover my loans”. (Despite a government order to go slow on recovery in a region hit by crisis, crop failure and more recently, drought).

Raut's suicide being the third in a month in Dhotragoan in Washim district, the village wants to see it spreads no further. “We try and meet every evening for an hour, all of us, anyone who will come,” says Nandkishore Shankar Raut from Dhotragaon. “The idea is to keep people's morale up.” So Dhotragaon counsels itself. Ramachandra Raut's letter was also an appeal not to be misunderstood. “Don't trouble anyone in my home,” it tells the police. “I am fully responsible for my action.” The stamp paper suicide note carries the seal of the deputy treasury officer of Mangrulpir tehsil dated March 29, and that of the stamp vendor who issued it to Raut on April 7. Raut filled it in and took his life the same day.

The family owes the banks Rs.1.5 lakh. His village pooled money to observe his 13th day ritual, sparing Raut's indebted family further expense.

Unique

Vidarbha's farm suicides have been unique in one respect. Some of those taking their lives have addressed suicide notes to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister or the Finance Minister. In August 2006 Rameshwar Lonkar of Wardha complained, in his note, to Dr. Manmohan Singh, just a month after the Prime Minister went to his region. “After the Prime Minister's visit and reports of a fresh crop loan, I thought I could live again,” Lonkar wrote. But he found himself rebuffed at every stage while seeking that loan. Sahebrao Adhao's last testament in Amravati the same year painted a picture of usury, debt and land grab.

In November 2006, cotton grower Rameshwar Kuchankar addressed the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in his note. He scribbled it down moments before taking his life in Yavatmal. “We are fed up with the delay in procurement and crashing prices ... Mr. Chief Minister, give us the price.” He also warned State Home Minister R.R. Patil that if the price did not improve at once, suicides would soar. They did.

“These notes are the last cry of despair of people trying to tell their government the reasons for agrarian distress,” says Kishor Tiwari. Mr. Tiwari heads the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a body fighting for farmers' rights. “We set up expert committees to tell us why farmers commit suicide when they are themselves telling us the reasons with such clarity in their suicide notes.” The notes often speak of debt, soaring cultivation costs, high cost of living and volatile prices. Some of them trash regressive policies and a credit crunch that have destroyed thousands of farmers here in the past decade. Crop failure and drought coming atop these, ruin fragile lives.

Two years of crop failure in a single crop district can mean 34 months with no income. Vidarbha gained little from the 2008 Farm Loan Waiver which addressed only bank debt. The waiver excluded those farmers holding more than five acres, and made no distinction between dry and irrigated holdings. In Western Vidarbha, farmers take more loans from moneylenders than from banks. And, the average land holding is around seven acres in this mostly unirrigated region.

Of the five states that account for two-thirds of all of India's farm suicides, Maharashtra is by far the worst. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) the State logged 41,404 farm suicides between 1997 and 2008. That is, more than a fifth of the national total of nearly 200,000 in that same period. Of those 12 years, NCRB data show, the years 2006-08 have been the very worst. Within the State, Vidarbha has been the focal point of the tragedy.

Back to square one

However, the situation here seems like a throwback to that of 2005-06, before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit. Hit by a spate of suicides at the time, the State government spoke in many voices. In mid-2005, it gave out a figure of just 141 distress suicides across the whole State since 2001. Challenged in court, it revised this to 524. When the National Commission of Farmers team led by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan visited later the same year, it conceded there had been over 300 in the single district of Yavatmal. The final figure for the whole State that year, put out by the NCRB, was actually 3,926 suicides.

“For a while,” says Mr. Tiwari of the VJAS, “the State revealed real numbers on the website of the Vasantrao Naik Farmers' Self-Reliance Mission. That was because of Dr. Singh's visit and a lashing from the courts.” In fact, those figures were far higher than anything even the VJAS had recorded. This year, however, the website's columns for 2010 are so far blank. The Agriculture Ministry's reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, based on State claims, says just 23 farm suicides occurred between January and April 8. This, even as other arms of government (and the Leader of the Opposition) put out figures ten times as high. The Vasantrao Naik Mission has itself given out signed data confirming there were 62 such deaths in January alone. (Though it has not put this up on its website.)

The numbers are routinely lowered by tagging hundreds of suicides as “non-genuine”. That is, “ineligible for compensation”. Aimed at curbing the amounts the State has to fork out to bereaved families, this move has caused much damage. “We are deluding ourselves,” says a senior official. “No wonder Ramachandra Raut felt the need to address his letter on stamp paper to the Prime Minister and President as well. He knew nothing would be taken seriously here in Maharashtra.”

CAG slams Mahaharshtra Govt. for helping Satyam- Hitavada Impact

CAG slams Mahaharshtra Govt. for helping Satyam

The Hitavada Impact

By Rohinikant Matey

IT’S official now. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has stated that Maharashtra Government, operating through the Maharashtra Airport Development Company Ltd (MADC) helped Satyam Computers acquire land at damned cheap rate in MIHAN. This brings back into sharp focus R C Sinha, the then Vice Chairman and Managing Director (VC&MD) of Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), for the role he played in the Satyam as well as in other deals.

The CAG finding has come as a vindication of The Hitavada story on January 11, 2009, questioning the role played by the MADC and its boss of the day. The Hitavada had exposed the tacit links R C Sinha had with a Satyam subsidiary namely MAYTAS (‘Satyam’ if read in reverse) and asked if that did not form vested interests that went against public interest.

The CAG has now rapped the Maharashtra Government for giving "undue benefit of over Rs 20 crore" to controversial Satyam Computer Services Limited by selling land at lower rates in Multimodal International Hub Airport (MIHAN) project at Nagpur.

Did R C Sinha grant extra-ordinary favours to Satyam Computer Services while allotting land to the now-maligned company at MIHAN, was the pointed question raised by The Hitavada then. And was it because Sinha was Chairman of Maytas Infra (the company whose involvement brought about the disgraceful downfall of Satyam), a connection nobody was aware of at the highest level, was the poser.

Coming down heavily on the Maharashtra Government, the CAG report states, "The Maharashtra Airport Development Company Limited (MADC) allotted 100 acre land to Satyam at a lower rate of Rs 18 lakh per acre against applicable rate of Rs 24.28 lakh considering it as an ‘early bird’ offer."

The report questions the logic behind allotting land to Satyam, an IT company, at a far cheaper rate when another IT major Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Limited was given land at the rate of Rs 26.30 lakh per acre.

Scoffing at the ‘early bird offer’ idea advanced by Sinha for Satyam , the CAG says that how can Satyam be considered an early bird when Shapoorji Pallonji, too, was awarded the land on the same day i.e. December 5, 2005, but at a far higher price tag.

‘Incidentally, MADC had approved 100 acre of land at MIHAN to Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Limited at the rate of Rs 26.30 lakh per acre for an IT company on the same day’ says the CAG report.

It was a well known fact that Sinha was close to B Ramalinga Raju, Founder and Chairman of Satyam Computer Services. The relations had thickened during the tenure of Chandrababu Naidu when Sinha was serving the Andhra Pradesh Government. It was during this time that Sinha was installed as the Chairman of the beleaguered company Maytas.

Surprisingly, nobody in the MADC or at the Government level was aware of Sinha being the Chairman of Maytas. The direct connection of Sinha with a company (Maytas) where Ramalinga Raju had a 36 per cent share and allottment of land to Satyam (owned by Raju), has raised many eyebrows in the Mantralaya.

Questions were raised whether it was proper for a Managing Director of MADC to ‘deal’ with a company (Maytas) where he himself was the Chairman. The CAG report has almost put a stamp on the fishy deal.

Satyam was also given over 28 acres of additional land on March 3, 2007 without the approval of the competent authority at a cheaper rate, the report said.

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No water under the bridge here - P. Sainath on Vidarbha Agrarian crisis

No water under the bridge here-Hindu








P. Sainath

Many projects for supplying water in Vidarbha remain on paper, though the money allotted is very real.

— Photo: P. Sainath

Precious burden: It is hard to find a woman, or even a very young girl, without one or more pot on her head anytime in daylight in Vidarbha.

Sarada Badre and her daughters have stopped their bi-weekly 20-km walking trips. That was their routine for a while. “The orange trees have withered and there's no water anyway,” says Saradabai at her home in Sirasgaon village in Amravati district.

In theory, watering their 214 orange trees shouldn't be too hard. Though the nearby canal has dried up, their new water source is 300 metres away. Next door by rural standards. “But that's 214 pots of water.” Back and forth, that is 428 trips, half of them with a full pot of water on their heads. Or over 40 km for each of the three women — in short trips. They cover “half the trees on Mondays and the other half on Thursdays”. That is apart from working in the fields all the other days with temperatures in Amravati well past 45°C in April itself. But now even that source is turning dry.

Water in Vidarbha can be a mirage — and not just in summer. Many of its “projects” in this sector remain on paper, though the money tied to them can be very real. Nearly Rs.3,000 crores of tenders have been floated for the Lower Penganga project — for which no land has been acquired other than 325 hectares for the dam site. “16,000 hectares required, 325 acquired,” scoffs a senior official. “Of those tenders floated, Rs.2,400 crore worth appear to have been allotted and some Rs.600 crores worth are under consideration or up for approval.” The region's landscape is dotted with “projects” for which work orders have been issued but no work ever done.

In Yavatmal, over 1,000 very angry people attended a “ pani parishad” (Water Council) organised by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS). The parishad declared it was fed up with “the total failure of government to address these problems”. So rasta rokos and other protests against the severe water shortages are in the offing. That will turn up the political heat as well. In many places protests have also broken out over load-shedding running to 14 hours or worse — with little information given to the public. MSEB engineers have been roughed up by farmers in some places.

Vidarbha's water crisis has half-crippled the Chandrapur Super Power Thermal Station which shut down the fifth of its seven units last week. The station now generates just 15 per cent of its capacity of 2340 MW. Such experiences have not deterred the state from proposing another 43 thermal power plants in the region. Around 19 of these have already been approved. “We live like there is no tomorrow,” says one official.

Panderkauda town in Yavatmal certainly lives that way. “They are pumping out 20 lakh litres of water a day from every known source and many new ones they've drilled into,” says Kishor Tiwari of the VJAS. “Their bores now run very deep. Anyone but the municipal parishad can see this coming to a sudden dead-end with no chance of recharge or recovery. Water is being sought, bought, sold, even stolen. This is a quick route to disaster.”

In Jarur village, Yavatmal, activists fought a politically-connected farmer selling water to poor people at high prices. That from a well which belongs to the village but with records fudged to show it as his property. He was selling ten litres for Rs.5. (Almost 150 per cent costlier than tanker water.) “He was earning Rs.1,000 a day from this,” says one activist. While they managed to halt this, the well itself is nearly empty.

Dismal performance

And there is very little work when lots of people need it badly. Like in much of Maharashtra, Vidarbha's performance in terms of MREGS work remains dismal. In the entire Amravati division, where 10 million humans reside in five districts, there are just about 16,000 covered by the rural employment guarantee scheme. Of these, around 13,500 — 84 per cent — are in Amravati district alone. Within Amravati, around 80 per cent of these workers are concentrated in just Melghat.

Current attendance is worse in the other districts of the division, as official figures show. Yavatmal has some 950 workers on the MREGS. Washim around 680, Buldhana 480 and Akola a mere 440. Neighbouring Wardha, the sixth of the “crisis” districts covered by the Prime Minister's and Chief Minister's “packages”, has around 650. So there is very little work to be had here. “When Bhandara district reached nearly 1,200 workers,” mocks Mr. Tiwari, “that was presented as a success story.” There is much hair-splitting over the factors behind this abysmal failure. “Lack of demand”, is a common official claim, one activists challenge. Whichever way you cut it, Maharashtra's overall performance in MREGS lags far behind many other states — and gets worse.

One result is a rise in out-migrations. “As soon as the agricultural season is over,” says Sunita Nagulkar in Wadiraithad village of Washim, “we go to wherever the contractors call us. That could be Nagpur, Pune, Mumbai or other places. Though my husband and his two brothers own three acres jointly, it was never enough.” In the places they went to, they faced harsh conditions but earned more than the maximum of Rs.105 each could possibly get if they were on the MREGS. All that came to an end this week. Her husband Chandraban had suffered an electric shock in the field that had damaged his arm. Depressed by that and their poor crop, he took his own life leaving Sunita to look after their three young daughters. But other “migrations are on and gaining in force”, says Prakash Rathor, teacher and farm activist in Washim.

In Sirasgaon, Akola, Saradabai shows little interest in the now stunted orange trees. In her, they evoke only the worst of memories. Her son Shekar took his life less than a week ago as their farm headed for its third straight year of failure. “I don't care about it,” she says, “if the trees die.” What she did care about, already did

Vidarbha Farmers Suicide - Govt. is misleading Nation -VJAS

23 farmers committed suicide in Jan-April, 2010: Agri. Minister

Vidarbha Farmers Suicide - Govt. is misleading Nation -VJAS

Nagpur- 3rd May, 2010

Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti(VJAS) who are tracking vidarbha farm suicides since 1997 as taken very strong objection of the central Govt. official information on floor of the parliament that in vidarbha from jan-2010 to 8^th April 2010 only 23 farmers committed suicide where as actually 209 committed suicide in the region as per officially record of state administration.

As per written reply it is reported that

I QUOTE

23 farmers committed suicide in Jan-April, 2010: Agri Min

http://www.zeenews.com/news623292.html

New Delhi: The Agriculture Ministry told Parliament today that 23 farmers committed suicide in the Vidarbha region between the start of the year and April 8, 2010.

"As per information made available by the government of Maharashtra, 23 farmers have committed suicide in Vidarbha due to agrarian reasons during the year 2010 from January 1 to April 8," Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.-PTI input

UNQUOTE

“this is very serious issue and we are moving against the both central and state Govt. in high court in our already filed PIL as matter of contempt of court because Mumbai high court Nagpur bench ahs already ordered state administration to update vidarbha farmer suicide figure on website and update but they are not updating it as they want mislead nation and parliament both, this is very unfortunate that they not providing any relief aid but rubbing the salt on wounds of the farmer by hiding the facts that hundreds of innocent vidarbha farmers killing themselves and Govt. failed to stop this mass genocide” Kishor Tiwari alleged.

“farmers after severe crop failure were expecting financial relief and at least interest waiver on last year over due crop loan along with food security ,health facility to critically ill members of distressed farming community and provision for direct financial assistance to daughter marriage but finance minister has skipped the most need relief more over failed to give free fodder and potable water promise to dying people of vidarbha ,this is unfortunate as these are farmers suicides are the result of the malfunctioning of state Govt.” kishore tiwari said.

‘we are expecting central intervention to stop this mass genocide of innocent farmers who are victims of wrong policies promoted by state as in dry land area rain sensitive crop like Bt.cotton is being cultivated in more than 95% area causing huge financial losses to the cotton farmers and water crisis in the area. We have demanding the ban on rain sensitive crop in this region and promotion of food crop in all rain fed area of vidarbha since 2004 but nobody is giving any attention to this serious demand resulting more and more farm suicides in the region ‘ Tiwari added.

“In vidarbha more than 7360 farmers killed themselves in Maharashtra since 2004 official figure of Govt. of India and majority of farmers are dry land region Vidarbha and Marathawada ,this year there is severe crop failure due to drought as more than 20000 villages have officially declared drought hit by Maharashtra Govt and despair in amounting to suicide due to apathy of administration toward the crisis ” Tiwari added

State Govt. declared drought in 15460 villages in vidarbha due to complete crop failure and declared relief measures on paper hence VJAS urged Indian Prime Minister intervention in vidarbha agrarian crisis to address the dying farmers and to provide free health care, food security, rural employment, fodder to save dying cattle ,drinking water to rural masses and cattle on priority basis so that prevailing acute distress can be minimize and farmers suicides can be controlled ,Tiwari said.

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Vidarbha on the verge of water riots-DNA

Vidarbha on the verge of water riots-DNA

Vidarbha on the verge of water riots Poor monsoons, depleting water tables, and dams with no water have brought the 3,400 villages of Vidarbha to a water crisis the likes of which they have never seen before, writes Jaideep Hardikar Mangi-Sunday, May 2, 2010 2:17 IST Jaideep Hardikar Sitting in the front yard of his hut, Babarao Turankar, 50, and his neighbours in Mangi village of south Yavatmal are engaged in deep discussion. Finally, one of them says, "Let's begin our search after lunch." It's been more than a month since they began hunting for a well that has water, says an agitated Turankar, sarpanch (head) of the village. "So far we haven't found one source that will see us through this summer." The village's two wells and the three bore-wells that fed it are parched. They have gone dry for the first time. Understandably, Mangi is in panic. Turankar says they need to find a well or a bore-well within 2km of the village boundary soon, because the only well that has some water left would run dry in another week. "This is the first time," says the sarpanch. "Mangi has never seen dry wells before." Mangi is by no means an isolated case. In Maharashtra, 20,000 villages are in acute drought, a situation described by the water supply and sanitation minister Laxman Dhoble as "very, very critical." In May it could turn ugly, he told reporters in Nagpur on April 29. The situation is worst in Vidarbha's 3400 villages, as almost all the major reservoirs in the district are running at dead storage levels, from where the water can't be lifted into the streams. Yavatmal is the worst hit. Here, two of the 3 major dams have zero water storage at this time, and there's May to go. A failed 2009 monsoon in Vidarbha came on the heels of two bad monsoons. Yavatmal's long-term average annual rainfall is 911 mm. In 2009, it received less than 450 mm of erratic rains in small spells. In 2007, it got 844 mm rainfall, and in 2008, 633 mm or 70 per cent of the average. "What we face in the middle of March every year, we were facing in October last," says the district collector Sanjay Deshmukh. Adding to the meteorological drought is the hydrological drought, with the water table receding to disastrous levels. Almost every district has recorded a steep decline in water table: an average of 3-5 meters in five years, and a staggering 8-10 meters over a decade, according to the Groundwater Surveys and Development Authority (GSDA). Over extraction, misuse and illegal 'water mining' have combined with other factors to push the water table ever lower. A failed monsoon only contributes to the problem."Not only has the days of rainfall reduced over the past few years, the water recharging has also been very poor," says Ulhas Band, a GSDA junior engineer at Amravati. This particularly hot summer, in a region where 75 per cent of water supply schemes have shut down, water scarcity is driving the villagers to desperation. "Almost every woman in our village will lose a lot of weight by the time monsoon arrives," says Ankita Chahare, 18, of Pachpore village in Zari tehsil of Yavatmal, as she prepares to fill her can at the only 'live' hand pump alive in the entire village. Chahare is a mother of one, and the hand pump she's working on summons water from several hundred feet. It's 3 pm and the mercury is stuck at 45 degrees for the past 15 days or so. But this is Chahare's fourth trip at the hand pump. And she will be back again with her three canisters. And she makes these four trips three times a day, every day. Almost every woman - in this village and all over Vidarbha - spends four to five hours every day fetching water, often waling for miles. When Chahare's husband returns from work in the evening, she says, he also joins her with a can or two. 'City pipeline's our only source' Pachpore is lucky in one sense: it actually has a working pump. The catch is that it is contaminated with fluoride. Villagers use this water for non-potable purposes and wait for a tanker for drinking water. Alongside this pump is a stream that has long gone dry. There is no trail of water; only a cracked wall of what must have been a substandard barrage. Like Mangi, for Pachpore, too, this running out of water is a first. Most villages in Yavatmal are at the mercy of tankers that supply water from sources far away. Pachpore gets its water from a bore-well in Hiwra-Barsa village, 7 km away, and it is their only hope. "If my bore dries, they are done," says Suresh Bolenwar, a farmer activist of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, whose bore-well supplies 24,000 litres of water every day to Pachpore and two other villages, free of cost. Bolenwar prays his bore does not run dry. "Otherwise there will be water riots here." In the saline tracts of Akola, Amravati and Buldana, the search for water is getting angrier. "In some of our villages," says Vasudev Ingle in Kinkhed, Akola, "You can get water supply once in 10 or 12 days." Ingle and his fellow villagers now raid a pipeline that carries water from Katepurna dam to Akola city, every alternate day. "It is the only source available to us," he says, drawing water from the supply line's valve. More than 200 villages in the saline tract, where ground water is salty and non-potable, the scarcity is frightening. Says Maya Ove of Dharel village, carrying three pots on her head, one on top of the other, "Hunting for water takes up most of our time every day." Even the livestock you see are searching for water. And there's little of it to be found anywhere. Not a natural calamity "For years, we neglected strengthening water sources and helping improve recharge," says a senior official. "Now we're paying the price." This is not a natural calamity, avers noted water expert, economist and former planning board member, HM Desarda. "This is a structured, man-made disaster." The state, he says, is facing scarcity as a result of faulty planning and wasteful spending on unwarranted projects, which are benefitting only contractors and some ministers. "Even dams are running out of water! Why?" he asks. Even if Vidarbha receives half its annual rainfall, it comes to 450 mm, he says. On a hectare of land, it means five million litres of water. "Even if you conserve and save 100 mm of it, it comes to a million litres." The drought of mid-2009 really took its toll on people from February and March this year. In a single crop area like Vidarbha, where assured irrigation is barely 7 per cent, even the slightest aberration in rain fall or drop in water table means a sure disaster. Crop failure means up to 24 months without income. Two successive failures can easily break the back of most farmers in a region already beset by crises. Already, the number of farmer suicides is beginning to rise once more, and outstanding debts - after the 2008 loan waiver sop - have shot up. According to the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, in the first four months of 2009, the suicide toll in the six districts of Western Vidarbha is close to 300. h_jaideep@dnaindia.net ===========================================================

vidarbha agrarian crisis-time to address crisis-here are solutions

Hundreds of cattle died after Bt.cotton Bole Eating: VJAS demands high level enquiry of livestock death

Hundreds of cattle died after Bt.cotton Bole Eating: VJAS demands high level enquiry of livestock death

Nagpur -30^TH APRIL 2010

The recent deaths hundreds of livestock in tribal part of yavatmal district of cotton farmers suicide capital vidarbha after the consumed the bt.cotton boles and plants has made all toll claims of Indian council agriculture research (I.C.A.R.) that Bt.( Bacillus Thuringiensis )cotton is safe for lice stock and human being even though there are numbers reports and papers already published that toxin in the bt.cotton bole and plant is killing the animals who grazing it as ridiculous and Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti(VJAS) urged Indian Govt. to arrange the high level enquiry in to hundreds livestock death in bt.cotton field inlast fortnight due to bt.coytton bole poising, Kishore Tiwari president Of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) informed in press note today. .

“I lost my young bullock just purchased in Rs.35,000/- after eating the boles of Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis)cotton left over by the farmers who irrigation facility and due only green fodder available in such field livestock are no option to eat it and they are dying” kolam tribal farmer Govinda Atram of village hiwara in zari taluka of yavatmal district informed today .

“I am not alone 1.Ramrao Panchenwar, 2.Janga Meshram,3.Gajanan Tandulkar, 4.Shivdayal Golamwar ,.6.Vilas Atram,7.Tulsiram Mandhare, 8.Sudhakar Nellawar,9.Raju Nellawar,10.Bhagwan Bais ,Balwant Devalwar ,11.Sanjay Bolenwar,12.Kisan Madhare,13Ashok Panchgenwar ,Surendra Bais,14.Kisan Bollewar are other victims in my village alone who have lost their live stock due to bt.cotton poisoning .there are reports from village Marki ,Arthwan where facility of irrigation is there livestock death” Atram Added.

‘My bullocks got ill after consuming bt.cotton boles but immediate medical treatment given animal husbandry officers and senior veterinary doctors who agreed that it is due to grazing on harvested Bt.cotton crop residues that has toxin which is dangerous to livestock health and hundreds such death have been reported recently in yavatmal district hence we demand the high level enquiry of these incidences of live stock death due bt.cotton bole eating ’ Suresh Bolenwar local activist and cotton farmers urged the union Govt. today.

“Bt(Bacillus Thuringiensis ) cotton has been commercially released in vidarbha in June 2005, after the Government of India granted permission to Mahyco-Monsanto, to market its Bt cotton variety in India . after that more than 7500 cotton farmers have committed suicides due crop failure as this variety is rain sensitive and required irrigational facility where as 95% cotton farmers are dry land farmers but toxin which is salient feature of this bole guard variety has been under controversy due to health hazards to human body and lice stock but authorities have denied these allegations all the time moreover when issue of Bt.Bringal came up for commercial trials permission Indian council agriculture research (I.C.A.R.) and senior policy makers in environment clearance committee openly advocated the Bt(Bacillus Thuringiensis). Genetically modified technology as very safe for human being and live stock but recent death of hundreds animals have raised question mark of arguments of these authorities hence we demand high level probe to have in-depth micro analysis of these animals on deaths after grazing bt.cotton fields ” Kishor Tiwari of VJAS urged.

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