Bengaluru: With two more farmers ending their lives-one in Kuragund village of Haveri district and another in Zavarikoppalu in Hassan district, the home turf of JD (S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda - the number of suicides shot up to five in three days even as the district authorities confiscated sugar stocked in sugar factories of four districts in order to pay sugarcane growers their arrears ahead of the monsoon session of legislature commencing in Belagavi on Monday.
Shocked by the increasing number of cases of self-harm by farmers, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made a fervent appeal that the farming community should not buckle as the state government would address all their problems, not just of sugarcane growers.
“I was born in a farmer's family, in a village, and understand your problems. You should remember that the government will always be with you, and will respond to their problems. We are here to extend all help and support,” he said in his home district, Mysuru, on Saturday.
As farmers in distress and debt, either because of failure of crops or pressure from private money lenders to repay their loans, took the extreme step, the Union government, state government and managements of sugar factories chose to play the blame game rather than accept responsibility.
Tobacco, not sugar
A tobacco grower, Swamy Gowda (43), suffering crop loss and under pressure to repay loans he had borrowed from a bank, took the extreme step to end his life by consuming poison in his field in Holenarsipur taluk of Hassan district.
