The Hindu Business Line : Farmer suicides

Thousands of farmers have committed suicides in the recent months and years in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in India for various reasons. They were cheated by the traders who supplied them with spurious seeds, pesticides, insecticides and spurious fertilisers, fake electrical motors etc. Further, they had to spend large amounts on drilling very deep bore-wells which eventually dried up due to the drastic fall in the ground water table. Blood sucking moneylenders left them perpetually debt-ridden and successive failed monsoons damaged their crops.

Farmers have had to battle the steady decline in the productivity of agricultural labourers, the steep rise in agricultural production not to mention over exploitation by middlemen while selling their produce. Further, the agriculture sector has witnessed wastage of water and electricity to the extent of 50 per cent. Unofficial commissions paid to bankers while disbursing agricultural loans and poor power quality, shortage of power and power reliability have all taken their toll on the farmer. That is why granting free power alone to farmers did not stop the mass suicides in the agricultural society.

R.P. Rammohan

Hyderabad

Letters to the editor and contributions can be sent by e-mail to: bleditor@thehindu.co.in

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