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8 more farmers commit suicide in Beed district
Ganesh Kanate
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 01:33 IST
MUMBAI: Eight marginal farmers in Beed district, who had turned labourers in sugarcane fields because of large debts, committed suicide in the last 48 hours.
With this, according to sources in the district administration, 28 farmers have killed themselves in the last week. The number of such suicides in seven years in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra alone is as high as 1454.
But the government denies these suicides were caused by debt and blames them on drinking, critical illness, or domestic frustrations.
On Monday, when DNA tried to contact Beed District Collector Piyush Singh, he was unavailable. Resident district collector Kante said, ?Of 28 deaths, preliminary inquiries of 26 have been completed and the remaining two will be completed tomorrow.
The district administration is of the view that none of these deaths were caused by indebtedness.?
Asked the cause of death listed in the official records, he said, ?One thing I can tell you is that these deaths have not taken place because of indebtedness. That is all.?
Sources in Beed and Arun Samudre, a senior journalist in Latur district who has been reporting these cases, confirmed that these deaths were the result of large unpaid debts.
?Majority of these people are marginal farmers who hold small pieces of land (2-3 acres),? Samudre said. ?Since this region has been badly hit by drought in the last three seasons, all of them were forced to go out to earn their livelihood. A significant number among them took to sugarcane-cutting work on farms owned by rich farmers. But with the sugarcane crop also hit by drought there is hardly any work.?
The lack of income and pressure of growing interest on loans drove these farmers to suicide, farm leader Kishor Tiwari said. ?A large number of farm labourers moved out to Narayanpur and other parts of Western Maharashtra, where there is a lot of sugarcane farming. But when they did not get work there too, some of them ended their lives then and there,? he said.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1023468&CatID=1
Ganesh Kanate
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 01:33 IST
MUMBAI: Eight marginal farmers in Beed district, who had turned labourers in sugarcane fields because of large debts, committed suicide in the last 48 hours.
With this, according to sources in the district administration, 28 farmers have killed themselves in the last week. The number of such suicides in seven years in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra alone is as high as 1454.
But the government denies these suicides were caused by debt and blames them on drinking, critical illness, or domestic frustrations.
On Monday, when DNA tried to contact Beed District Collector Piyush Singh, he was unavailable. Resident district collector Kante said, ?Of 28 deaths, preliminary inquiries of 26 have been completed and the remaining two will be completed tomorrow.
The district administration is of the view that none of these deaths were caused by indebtedness.?
Asked the cause of death listed in the official records, he said, ?One thing I can tell you is that these deaths have not taken place because of indebtedness. That is all.?
Sources in Beed and Arun Samudre, a senior journalist in Latur district who has been reporting these cases, confirmed that these deaths were the result of large unpaid debts.
?Majority of these people are marginal farmers who hold small pieces of land (2-3 acres),? Samudre said. ?Since this region has been badly hit by drought in the last three seasons, all of them were forced to go out to earn their livelihood. A significant number among them took to sugarcane-cutting work on farms owned by rich farmers. But with the sugarcane crop also hit by drought there is hardly any work.?
The lack of income and pressure of growing interest on loans drove these farmers to suicide, farm leader Kishor Tiwari said. ?A large number of farm labourers moved out to Narayanpur and other parts of Western Maharashtra, where there is a lot of sugarcane farming. But when they did not get work there too, some of them ended their lives then and there,? he said.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1023468&CatID=1