MYSURU: On a day when three more farmers ended their lives in the fertile district of Mandya, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made a fervent appeal in an effort to check the wave of suicides and promised more welfare schemes for the farming community.
“We are with you. Suicide is not the solution to your problems. I appeal to you with folded hands, please stop committing suicides,” he told farmers of Mandya and the rest of Karnataka while speaking at a function organized at a college in the sugar town on Saturday.
He said “the moment the thought of suicide comes to your mind, please think about members of your family, and their future. I am sure that you will not end up taking such an extreme step. We have already come up with several good developmental programmes for the agricultural sector. We will come up with more and more programmes to help you, especially in marketing to ensure that farmers get fair price for their produce. We have booked as many as 900 cases, and arrested as many as 470 people under Karnataka Prohibition of Charging Exorbitant Interest for charging exorbitant interest. And we have asked co-operative societies and banks not to press farmers for recovering loans. We have increased the ex-gratia given to family members of deceased farmers from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. Even though it does not solve their problem as such, it will help them to a little extent. Opposition parties have demanded to give an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh. We can do that, but have decided to stop at Rs 2 lakhs because that itself should not become a initiative for them,” he added.
He said managements of sugar factories have been asked to commence crushing sugarcane by August end.
“Measures are being taken for revival of Mandya Sugar mills. There has been excessive production of sugar in the state. While we require 18 lakh tons of sugar for the domestic market, the state currently has a stock of 50 lakh tons. Sugar rates which were Rs 32-Rs 33 a kg in 2012-2013 have dropped to Rs 26 in 2013-14, and currently during 2014-15 the rate has further dropped to Rs 19-Rs 20. In the last three years, we have given a support price of Rs 1,520 crores to farmers. We will release some more funds. So, suicides should stop,” he added.
Reacting to Union agriculture minister Mr Radha Mohan Singh’s statement that farmers committed suicide because of factors like love affairs and impotency, Mr Siddaramaiah said “He should not have made such a statement.”
