The Hindu Business Line : Farmers' deaths: Probe by human rights panel urged

DR Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, has, in a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), blamed the State Government for the growing number of suicides by farmers and called its attitude towards the problem as a violation of human rights.

He requested the commission to direct the Government to pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each to the families of farmers who committed suicide and to take appropriate measures against those responsible for the deaths.

Dr Rajasekhara Reddy charged the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, with reporting to the drought relief team that toured the State that about 1,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last five years due to severe drought conditions.

He said in reality more than 2,000 farmers had ended their life as evident from reports from various sources. Three out of four farmers who committed suicide in the country were from Andhra Pradesh.

He lamented that the suicides were still continuing. In 2001, as many as 191 such deaths were reported and up to December 5 this year 227 suicides came to light.

In the 34 days from November 2 this year, 15 farmers had ended their life in Anantapur district. The deaths were due to crop failure, inability to repay loans taken from private money lenders, high input costs and electricity bills.

According to the Sisodia Committee report, Andhra Pradesh was spending Rs 74 per hectare which was much below the amount spent by other States. The fact is, after spending Rs 9,000 crore on the irrigation sector from 1983, the area under projects had come down to 16.49 lakh ha (18.39 lakh ha in 1983-84) and under tanks to 7.27 lakh ha (10.87 lakh ha) in 2000-01.

Against this background, the Government had permitted co-operative banks and electricity department to collect arrears from beleaguered farmers and even invoked the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Revenue Recovery Act, Dr Reddy alleged.

He requested NHRC to hold a public inquiry into the matter. He said the Congress party's Anantapur district unit had collected nearly Rs 20 lakh by way of donations and disbursed the same among 90 affected families of farmers at Rs 22,222 each.

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Farmers' deaths: Probe by human rights panel urged