Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Sunday that the government would soon a form vision group, under the chairmanship of Dr M. S. Swaminathan, to formulate new programmes to help alleviate poverty among farmers.
When asked about increasing number of suicides among farmers in the State, and whether Anna Bhagya had failed to alleviate poverty among the community he said, “We are giving free rice under Anna Bhagya scheme for one crore seven lakh People. There is no relation between poverty and suicide. Also not getting proper prices based on their investment, could not be the only reason, there might be many reasons why they are committing suicide, including rain, loans taken from private money lenders and banks.
“We have constituted Agriculture Price Commission. We are providing support price fixed by the Central Government for crops, loans at lesser interest rates. We are implementing Krishi Bhagya in rain shadow areas and have come up with several other programmes for farmers. Yet they are committing suicides. The reasons for increase in suicides particularly in the month of June and July has remained a mystery.”
Regarding other measures taken to ease the woes of farming community, he said, “We are constituting teams at district levels, led by deputy Commissioner, including Assistant Commissioner, Superintendent of Police, agriculture officers, co-operative Department officers and all agriculture allied departments and instructing them to hold meetings and interact with farmers at taluk levels to understand the problem. We are also constituting Vision Group led by Dr M. S. Swaminathan to evolve with new programmes in Agriculture Sector to help farmers, he said.
Meanwhile speaking at birth centenary of literary figure Dr De. Ja. Gow, the Chief Minister said, “Expensive weddings could have landed them in debt traps and could have been one of the reasons for farmers’ suicide. Probably keeping this in mind, Kuvempu evolved the concept of manthra mangalya and simple marriages.” We are committed to take any measures to protect Kannada language, he added.
