Maharashtra sets up panel on farmers' suicide

Taking cognisance of the spate of suicides by debt ridden farmers in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, the state government has decided to appoint a committee headed by an agricultural economist and comprising a sociologist, psychologist and bankers to analyse and recommend steps to curb the widespread suicides by agriculturists.

No government official will be a member of the committee.

A fund with an initial corpus of Rs 10 crore is to be set up to provide financial assistance to the next of kin of farmers who have already committed suicide.

Committee members are expected to look at the question of resheduling farmers' loan repayments.

The committee is expected to be set up in another two days.

Financial assistance would be provided after an on-the-spot survey by committee members of villages where the suicides occurred.

Confirming this, a senior government official here said that a primary analysis of the suicides (pre-dominantly in the Wardha, Yevatmal and Amravati districts of Vidarbha region) suggests that the change in cropping patters by farmers over the last few years was mainly responsible for their financial predicament.

"We are also analysing the recent report submitted to the Andhra Pradesh government on farmers' suicides there. What is a prima facie finding in the Rayalseema region in AP as well as the Vidarbha region is the wholesale shift to mono-cropping resorted to by most farmers. While in Rayalseema 'paddy' became the preferred cash crop, in Vidarbha it has been 'cotton.' Earlier, farmers adopted multiple cropping," the official said.

With mono-cropping in, the dependence of farmers on high cost pesticides (as these cash crops are pest prone) and the price fluctuations in AP and in Maharashtra as well hit farmers badly, he added.