Debt-ridden farmer ends life

Eluru: Unable to clear his mounting debts, a distraught farmer decided to end his life. The AP Rythu Sangham has demanded that the government pay compensation of Rs 7 lakh to the kin of deceased tenant farmer K Nagaraju who committed suicide here on Tuesday.

The leaders of the Sangham said that the Narasannapalem farmer was neck-deep in debts and as there was no way to steer clear from the debt trap, he ended his life. They consoled the family members of the deceased farmer.

Speaking on the occasion, Rythu Sangham district secretary K Srinivas informed that the farmer took the extreme step as he suffered losses for four consecutive years in farming. He took six acres of land on lease and started cultivating tobacco.

Apart from the vagaries of Nature, he did not get remunerative price for the produce. In the process of farming, the tenant farmer took Rs 9 lakh loan from private money lenders. As the pressure to repay the loans increased coupled with losses in the cultivation, he preferred to end life, he lamented.

Srinivas said that there were several farmers like Nagaraju who were in a debt trap as they were incurring huge losses while cultivating crops. The State government should come to the rescue of such people, he added.