According to the official, the report, which was submitted to the government recently, also says that there has been violation of standard operating procedures by several departments, including the home department, headed by Maharashtra chief minister.
As per a state government report, around 21 farmers died in Yavatmal district due to inhalation of poisonous fumes during the spraying of pesticides on cotton plants. Over 400 farmers and labourers have fallen sick, of which around 21 have died, it says. Yavatmal district is also infamous for large number of farmers' suicides.
A senior IAS officer posted in the state Agriculture Department alleged, "It is a deliberate attempt to show these suicide cases as victims of pesticide inhalation possibly to misappropriate the compensation amount (at the departmental level) given by the state government."
"It is not just about inserting the farmers' names for compensation. It seems officials from the health, agriculture, home and revenue departments, apart from private companies selling these pesticides, are involved in this mess..." he alleged.
"In case of these 3-4 farmers, there was no post-mortem report, that is why the issue was probed further. It revealed that those farmers had already committed suicides and their names were mentioned in the accidental death reports of the state government," he added.
"All this raises some serious questions. How come local health officials ignored such basic procedure and allowed mentioning of farmers' names into the list of alleged victims of pesticide fumes? In such cases, the revenue and home departments also come into the picture and it will have to be probed further as well," the officer said.
These instructions were given despite the government having funds to carry out such blood tests and obtain results, the report said.
"Who will go to Nagpur, which is 150 kms away from Yavatmal to first submit the sample and later collect the report? Hence, many relatives did not do it and the samples were lost. And then local health officers submitted a report that pesticides were not responsible for these deaths," the officer said.
"Some local farmers have claimed that because of such height, the spraying of pesticides increased the exposure of farmers to the chemicals and it worsened the situation," he said.
"We will find out how the company brought its BT cotton variety, which was still under development, into the market without permission. This is nothing but playing with the lives of farmers," the officer said.
"Not a single person from local department, such as district collector or district health officer was included in this committee," the IAS officer said.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
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