Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Jun 24, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Jun 24, 2004 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Natural Calamities Rights forum calls for long-term measures Our Bureau
Visakhapatnam , June 23 THE Human Rights Forum has urged the State Government to take immediate steps to prevent the suicides of farmers, as five to ten such incidents are being reported everyday, by addressing the basic issues. Short-term solutions will not suffice. Citing several case studies in a report released here, two forum members - Ms U. Vindya, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Andhra University, and Ms K. Anuradha, Horticulture Officer - have dismissed the argument being advanced by some that there has been a spate of suicides since the assumption of power by the Congress Government, which has announced a Rs 1.5-lakh compensation package for the families of the victims. "It is indicative of the cynical attitude, and the indifference of the urban intelligentsia to the pathetic situation and the case studies conducted by us have shown it to be merely conjectural and false," the report said. The forum has studied 50 cases of suicides in 14 districts. The forum has also dismissed the suggestion that in many cases an attempt is being made to show the natural death of a farmer (or a suicide due to reasons not related to agriculture) as a fit case for compensation. "In 50 incidents, we have found only two such cases which is barely four per cent. All the other cases are genuine," the report said. "There are several other myths surrounding the suicides. One is that the farmers are cultivating commercial crops at enormous cost by incurring heavy debts and it is culminating in the suicides. "Except in Guntur district, where the cultivation of commercial crops such as chillies and cotton has been the practice for decades, the farmers are not going in for such crops," they said. The forum members opined that the announcement of a compensation package, and a moratorium on loans by farmers, are only short-term steps to tackle the problem. "The Government should make available credit and agricultural inputs to the farmers liberally and all steps should be taken to pull them out of the debt trap. "The debt trap they are caught in is the cumulative result of the errant agrarian policies pursued by the successive Governments since the introduction of economic reforms in the nineties," they opined.
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