Human rights body asks Telangana, Andhra for farmers' suicide report
Hyderabad: While the suicide of a farmer at the AAP rally on Wednesday in New Delhi shook the nation, AP and Telangana have witnessed hundreds of such suicides since bifurcation last year, prompting the National Human Rights Commission to take a serious view on this.
The NHRC, which is currently conducting its hearings in Hyderabad, on Thursday directed the TS government to submit a comprehensive report on the reasons for the increasing number of farmer suicides, relief and rehabilitation measures for the affected families and steps taken by the government to prevent such suicides.
In fact, the NHRC had issued notices to the TS government in November 2014 on farmers' suicides.
Read: 91 per cent Andhra Pradesh farmers are debt-laden
Scores of the affected families approached the NHRC complaining that the government had only admitted to 96 suicides so far though over 700 farmers had killed themselves since the formation of Telangana in June 2014.
Principal secretary of revenue, Mr R.K. Meena submitted before the Commission that as per reports submitted by district collectors to the government, 96 farmers committed suicide.
He said officials had been inquiring into reports of hundreds of farmers committed suicide in the last few months and the government would submit a report to the Commission on the issue after it received feedback from the districts.
The complainants meanwhile brought to the Commission’s notice that the government was providing only Rs 1.5 lakh compensation to the affected families which was not sufficient.
Demanding Rs 5 lakh compensation, they said that most of the farmers who committed suicide were aged below 35 years; they had small children and their entire families had been ruined on account of the suicides.
The NHRC pointed out that most of the farmers who committed suicide were small and marginal farmers holding less than 3 acre land.
Read: Failure of crops to deepen trouble
It said that the government should look into whether getting loans from banks had become difficult for these sections, forcing them to depend on private money lenders for high-interest loans, pushing them into financial crisis, leading to suicides.
However, Mr Meena said that the TS government had waived off crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh, and majority of the farmers who had benefitted belonged to these sections.
The complainants, who also include various civil and farmers’ organisations, informed the Commission that 2019 farmers had committed suicide in Telangana since 1978 but the government had paid compensation to the families of only 732 farmers.
After hearing both sides, the Commission, headed by Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, directed TS to submit a comprehensive report on suicides by farmers and the measures taken to prevent them.
