A storm is brewing in Vidarbha, the cotton bowl of Maharashtra, where farmers are once again choosing to end their lives in the face of mounting debts and alleged government apathy.
In Yavatmal district alone as many as 14 farmers, including a woman, have committed suicide between September 2001 and today.
The figures for entire Vidarbha should be well over 25, Shetkari Sanghatana activists claim.
The factors forcing farmers to take the extreme step are the same, debt trap, non-payment of cotton dues in time, bad irrigation facilities and frequent crop failures.
Bandu Jhiblaji Katkar, owner of 25 acre land in Dahegaon-Kumbha village in Ralegaon tehsil of Yavatmal district committed suicide on June 18 this year.
He was a progressive farmer and the sole bread earner of his family. His 72-year-old father Jhiblaji, who is now the owner of the farm, is blind, weak and distraught at not only losing his son, but also having to put up with the trauma of surviving on what his daughter-in-law earns as a labourer on someone else
