The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Several factors blamed for ryots' suicide in 2000-05

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Saturday, Oct 28, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Several factors blamed for ryots' suicide in 2000-05

Special Correspondent

Council for Social Development conducts the study

HYDERABAD: Suicide by farmers in the age group of 31-45 years in the State between 2000 and 2005 occurred across all communities and regions and there was no correlation between educational qualifications and suicides, according to a study conducted by the Council for Social Development.

Farmers were caught in a debt trap of non-institutional sources of credit and in many cases the victims took the extreme step due to heavy pressure and humiliation from private moneylenders. Traders doubling up as farm input suppliers, moneylenders and traders in farm produce and fleecing farmers pushed them to the brink.

Poor returns

Diversification of food to commercial crops, rising cost of production and poor returns besides failure of financial institutions to help small and marginal farmers forced them to end lives. The book titled `Undeserved death - a study on suicide of farmers in Andhra Pradesh - 2000-2005' was released by M. Narasimham, Chairman, Administrative Staff College of India, here on Thursday.

The study pointed out that neglected surface irrigation facilities and failure of agriculture extension services also caused distress to farmers. Absence of social security measures added to the distress of these farmers.

It said there should be health and crop insurance scheme for families of ryots. Other suggestions were: issuance of Kisan credit cards to all ryots and monitoring of rural credit from public and commercial banks by the RBI.

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