898 farmers and 449 agricultural workers committed suicide in 2014
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Hyderabad: The Opposition Congress and TD held the TRS government responsible for the record number of farmer suicides in the new state. They accused the one-year-old government of neglecting farmers and their welfare which had driven them to take the extreme step.
Congress MLCs Shabbir Ali and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy on Monday held Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao responsible for taking Telangana to the second position in the list of shame in terms of farmers’ suicide. Quoting statistics released by National Crime Records Bureau, they said 898 farmers and 449 agricultural workers committed suicide in 2014, primarily due to the negligence of the state government.
“While the CM has all the time and money to spend on celebration of different festivals, he cares little for the farmers, who are committing suicide. The crop loan waiver promise remains unfulfilled. While 25 per cent of loan dues were cleared last year, this year only 12.5 per cent has been released. Farmers already lost two seasons due to various factors and bad monsoon is set to hurt the ongoing Khariff season. But the Chief Minister is yet to hold a review meeting to assess the situation. He is not even willing to speak about the farmers’ issue,” they said while demanding that the state government seek expert advice on how to minimise the losses and prevent suicides.
Unlike in the past, when middle-aged or elderly farmers took their lives, these days even young farmers in their early 20s were committing suicide. This must be stopped at any cost, they said. They demanded that a cheating case be booked against Mr Rao and the TRS government for misleading Parliament and Legislature with wrong statistics on farmers’ suicides.
Former MP and TD official spokesperson Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy said the Chief Minister confines himself to his farm house and grows capsicum and ginger to earn crores, but fails to extend his success to other farmers in Telangana. The CM did not care to take up any farmer welfare measure during the last one year, he said. He also accused the government of declaring a crop holiday during the last rabi season by stating it will not provide power to agriculture pumpsets. Similarly it also failed to complete all the pending irrigation projects that led to large scale suicide by farmers, he alleged.
TS disputes NCRB data on suicides by farmers:
Agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, meanwhile, disputed the NCRB figures. “As per state government records, less than 100 farmers have committed suicide since June last year. There cannot be such a huge variation between our report and the NCRB’s. I am yet to go through the NCRB report completely. I cannot comment anything more on this at this stage,” he said.
The government had reacted on this issue only after the Opposit-ion parties raised a hue and cry in the Legislative Assembly and stalled proceedings previously. The last time it did something was when AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi toured Adilabad in May.
To console the families of farmers who had committed suicide. Ministers and officials tried to expedite the inquiry on farmers' suicides for one-two weeks after Mr Gandhi’s tour but later it fizzled out.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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