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Six more commit suicide
due to crop failure in AP

Six members of three farmers' families committed suicide in drought-hit Anantapur district in southern Andhra Pradesh, due to successive crop failure and mounting debts.

This takes the tally of suicide deaths by farmers in the district to 22 since September this year.

Blaming the state administration for failure to prevent the deaths, Communist Party of India state secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy said on Saturday that the six suicides occurred on Thursday in Anantapur district, which witnessed similar suicides of a dozen farmers and four girls during September.

Sudhakar (30) doused himself, his wife Ganga Devi (27) and his one-year-year daughter Kavya with kerosene and lit the fire at Krishnamreddypalli village on the outskirts of Anantapur town. Sudhakar and Navya succumbed to burn injuries, while Ganga has been admitted to the government hospital at Anantapur town with critical burns.

Sudhakar had four acres of agricultural land but he resorted to the drastic step following failure of a groundnut crop and huge debts.

In Nachevaripalli village in Chalamathur, 42-year-old farmer Shankar Reddy, his mother Nanjamma (70) and his wife Bhagyamma (35) committed suicide by consuming a pesticide. Reddy, who owned four acres, was desperate owing to failure of a groundnut crop and heavy debts.

A farmer's wife, Saraswati, ended her life in Gandlaparthi village due to financial difficulties her family was experiencing.

The CPI state council has deputed former legislator K Ramakrishna to probe the incidents.

"Those who committed suicide in Anantapur district in recent weeks had similar problems. They all were in despair owing to the groundnut crop failure and huge debts. The state government could not come to their rescue and the crop insurance scheme failed to mitigate their financial difficulties," the CPI state secretary pointed out.

"The plight of farmers is very serious. The state government has nothing nothing. The problem has got aggravated due to successive crop losses over three to four years. The farmers are in heavy debt. We appeal to the farmers not to lose heart or get desperate but to fight adversity courageously. Suicide is no solution and they should not resort to this," Sudhakar Reddy observed.

He said that the government announced release of funds for payment of compensation to farmers for crop losses in Anantapur district but no disbursement was made. "The only help that the Chandrababu Naidu regime provided to the farmers has been the free supply of pesticides to fight the pest attack on crops. Ironically, the free pesticide is coming in handy for the farmers to commit suicide," he remarked.

He also appealed to the government to reintroduce the Rural Indebtedness Relief Act, which was repealed 10 years back. This Act, he said, was enacted during the erstwhile Nizam's rule in Hyderabad state and a similar legislation was in force in Andhra during British rule. The Act was continued after formation of Andhra Pradesh as it provided security to poor peasants against vagaries of nature.

Once the Act was invoked in an area following crop failure, the farmers in that area were exempted from repaying loans. The Act, thus, provided relief to distressed farmers through waiver of institutional and private loans. However, it was scrapped by the government under pressure from money-lenders and financial institutions, the state secretary alleged.

He said that the crop insurance scheme under implementation in Anantapur failed to provide adequate compensation to the farmers. The insurance companies, he said, fixed the compensation amount based on the average crop yield over the last four years.

"This (crop insurance scheme) may work in areas where there is a good crop for three years and a bad crop one year. But in areas where there is crop failure for four years, the low crop yield will hardly be the right criteria for providing relief," he pointed out and demanded that the government revamp the crop insurance scheme in consultation with the political parties and farmers' organisations.

The state government also adopted an indifferent attitude towards families of farmers who committed suicide by refusing to pay them ex-gratia of Rs 100,000 each, as it would encourage more farmers to commit suicide. In the absence of government assistance, the victims' families are left in the lurch and driven to more desperation on account of financial hardships. Neither debt relief is provided to them nor adequate compensation paid under the crop insurance scheme.

The suicides in Anantapur district now are symptomatic of the syndrome that was witnessed during 1998 in Warangal and other Telangana districts, wherein 159 cotton growers ended their lives by consuming pesticides following the failure of crops due to unseasonal rains and attacks by pests.

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