Headlines
Modi's one year in power saw 1,306 farmer suicides in Maharashtra
Nagpur, May 25
A record 1,306 farmers
committed suicide in Maharashtra during the one-year period of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi in office - between May 20, 2014, to May 25,
2015, a farmers' watchdog body said here on Monday.
This figure
is around 40 percent higher than the same period between May 2013-May
2014, said Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti chief Kishore Tiwari.
While
there are various views about Modi's one year in power, most of them
being optimistic, it is not true of the Maharashtra farmers,
particularly in Vidarbha - which is the epicentre of Indian farmland
suicides in the past 10 years, said Tiwari.
"Official statistics
say 1,306 farmers ended their lives as the NDA-II marks its first year
in power. In fact, the trend has been increasing and the first 140 days
of 2015 (from January 1) recorded the highest ever 448 suicides,
indicating serious distress prevailing in the five million agrarian
community of the state," Tiwari told IANS.
He said last year's
crises, including extensive damage to Kharif and Rabi crops, severe
climatic changes resulting in bouts of droughts and floods coupled with
hailstorms, and market recessions, have spurred the suicide rates in the
state.
"There is no interest among farmers in the ongoing
celebrations of PM Modi's first anniversary in the dying fields of
Vidarbha and other parts of the state where over three million cotton
farmers and two million tribal families continue to battle starvation,"
he said.
In the past 10 years, he pointed out, Vidarbha has hit
international headlines with more than 11,000 debt-trapped cotton
farmers' suicides and now Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has sought
help from Israel to arrest the trend.
The state farmers had
celebrated with joy when Modi was swept to power and he assured a
solution to their (farmers') problems within 100 days of taking office
by proposing some revolutionary formulae.
"Now it is already a
year, but the NDA-II seems to have forgotten all its promises on the
basis of which the farmers voted for them en masse. The healing touch
never came, there was no waiver of old loans or sanction of new loans,"
Tiwari lamented.
Though the Maharashtra government has declared
that 23,811 of the state's 39,453 villages, or around 60 percent, are
affected by drought with more than 12 million hectares of farmlands
damaged, little is being done to address the situation.
The last
union budget spoke of mega investments for infrastructure, but failed to
tackle the core issue of direct relief packages to the farmers,
especially the cotton cultivators who were throttled by the global open
market economy and mismatched demand-supply situation, Tiwari said.
"Most
other promises of the government for farmers turned out to be a 'kisan
jhumla' and farmers continue to end their lives. On the eve of Modi's
one year in office being celebrated, at least 10 farmers have committed
suicide in the past three days alone," Tiwari said.