Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Centre and Maharashtra government would evolve a package for farmers aimed at improving their financial conditions and reducing the debt burden. |
"The Centre along with the state will try to find a solution to this problem. The remedy cannot be immediate, but the situation will certainly improve," said Singh, who is touring Vidarbha region of the state to review the situation on the ground level in the wake of suicides by over 1,600 farmers in last five years. |
"Mai yahan janane aaya hun ki hum kya kar sakhte hain (I have come here to know what we can do)" he told the farmers. Singh said that he would sit with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to work out some package before he leaves Vidarbha. |
Though the PM couldn't have understood much of what widows of farmers told him in Marathi, their anguish needed no translation. He listened to them for an hour and then assured them of help. |
The first PM ever to have visited the hinterland of Vidarbha where over 1,600 farmers have committed suicide in the past few years, was left humbled by the experience. It was a solemn Singh who waved at the gathering this afternoon. The economist in him rallying, perhaps, to find a solution to the vexed problem of farmers' suicides. |
Singh said the Centre along with the state government would try to exploit the irrigation potential of the region. |
He agreed with farmers that there was need to create alternative sources of income and that the package he intended announcing would offer avenues for supplementing income and include such activities as cattle rearing and horticulture. |
"The situation cannot improve overnight. But it will do so gradually so that no farmer has to confront such dilemmas again," he hoped. |
Singh said he could understand the pain of farmers who had to face hardships, some of them even taking the extreme step. |
Assuring that the government was with the farmers, Singh exhorted the gathering to specify their needs. "The government will make all out efforts to meet your needs. This is my mission. I have discussed it with Pawarji and am here to take it further," Singh said. |