Overspending on marriages behind farmer suicides, govt informs HC

Hyderabad: The Telangana State government informed the High Court at Hyderabad that farmer suicides could be attributed to over-spending on marriages and burden of getting their children educated in private schools among various other reasons.

The government filed the counter before the court that was dealing with a public interest writ petition filed by Vyavasaya Jana Chaitanya Samithi. The petitioner sought a direction to the government to take preventive measures to stop the suicides of financially distressed farmers in the State.

The government on Thursday informed the court that though there were many reasons for farmer suicides like private lending, crop failure for two consecutive years, indiscriminate digging of borewells, family disputes, prolonged illness, burden of private loans for visiting the Gulf countries for employment, the main reason for suicides among farmers was due to over-spending on marriages and educating children in private schools.

Refuting the petitioner’s claim of 1,347 farmer suicides within one year, the government informed the court that number of farmer suicides cases reported in the State from June 2 to October 10 this year was 782 out of which 342 cases were found to be genuine. It said that it had taken up excessive awareness programmes by the officials of the Department of Agriculture with a view to creating awareness and to impart sufficient knowledge to farmers regarding modern agriculture production techniques and ways to reduce cost of cultivation.

It further informed the court that it had increased the ex gratia to the victims’ families from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh besides waving crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission. “To mitigate financial burden of farmers and to encourage farmers in availing institutional credit, loans are being made available to them at zero interest or at lower interest rates under Rythu Sri Programme,” the government said. It informed the court that after a study by the Agriculture Department Joint Directors, it was found that out of the 154 farmer suicides in the month of September this year, as many as 94 were because of agricultural problems. It submitted to the court that a 3-member committee at the district-level with RDO-- Sub- Collector as chairman, Deputy Superintendent of Police and Assistant Director of Agriculture as members was constituted for verification and certification of suicides.