The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Debt main cause of ryot suicides

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Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Debt main cause of ryot suicides

K. Venkateshwarlu

In most cases, suicides were committed by consuming pesticide

RTI applicant D. Rakesh Kumar, a software engineer working with Oracle, obtained details
Backward Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts report one and five suicides respectively

HYDERABAD: It is official. In all, 2,814 farmers have committed suicide after arguably the most farmer-friendly Government took over in May 2004.

At least that’s what a meticulously compiled district-wise details furnished by the Government in response to a Right to Information application conveys.

It includes both peculiarly categorised “genuine” (1870) and “not –genuine” (944) farmers based on their applications for Government relief. RTI applicant D. Rakesh Kumar, a young software engineer working with Oracle, obtained the details after doggedly pursuing it for well over six months.

No respite

In its anxiety to prove the point that it was able to check farmers’ suicides so rampant during the previous regime, the Government had always tried to dodge, play down and obfuscate the real number.

From the Government’s lofty claim that it would not allow a single farmer to resort to extreme step to Jayathi Ghosh Commission to relief packages, the wheel seems to have turned a full circle. There is just no respite yet for Andhra Pradesh farmers’ who continue with their propensity to kill themselves in the face of adversity.

The voluminous reports submitted by the District Collectors recently for the period June 1, 2004 to October 31, 2006, as sought by Mr. Kumar in December 2006, have apart from stark self-explanatory data, some interesting facets.

Main source

In terms of reasons for the suicide, agriculture debt leads the list. How? In most cases it was by consuming pesticide. And private money lender continues to be the farmers’ main source of funding with institutional credit a mirage.

Region-wise, Telangana registered the maximum with 1773, followed by Rayalaseema 569 and Andhra 472.

Among districts, Mahabubnagar tops the list with 176 farmers committing suicide closely followed by Kurnool (173), Anantapur (171), Karimnagar (152), Nalgonda (142), Medak (132), Adilabad (113), Warangal (104) and Ranga Reddy (100).

But strangely “not genuine” claims outnumber “genuine” ones in Medak (278), Adilabad (168), Nizamabad (131) and Ranga Reddy (111), giving rise to the doubt whether the exercise was to keep down the officially recognised number.

Within the region, surprisingly, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam, the most backward districts in Andhra, reported one and five suicides respectively while it was 98 in Krishna, 97 in Guntur and 52 in West Godavari.

Farm inputs

It clearly indicates that it is not just assured irrigation facilities but factors like farm inputs, access to credit and remunerative price for the produce do matter a lot.

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