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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | 3 more farmers commit suicide in Kerala

3 more farmers commit suicide in Kerala

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published Published on Nov 23, 2011   modified Modified on Nov 23, 2011
-The Pioneer
 
Three more debt-ridden farmers committed suicide in Kerala in 24 hours till Monday morning taking the total number of farmers ending life due to financial problems in the past two weeks in the State to seven. 

Farmers Kunhikrishnan (50) and KK Joseph (48) of Wayanad district committed suicide by hanging while Chandran of Palakkad district ended his life by consuming poison. All of them had pending repayments of huge loans taken from commercial banks for agricultural purposes.

Kunhikrishnan was found hanging at Thazhamunda under Kenikkara Police Station limit on Monday morning while the body of Joseph of Meenangadi was found at his residential premises on late Sunday evening. Chandran of Peruvambu in Palakkad consumed poison on Sunday. 

He died while being shifted to the Medical College Hospital Thrissur on early Monday morning.

According to reports, Kunhikrishnan, actually a farm worker, had taken loans from banks while relatives of Joseph said he had not been able to repay the Rs 200,000 bank loan he had taken. Chandran, a marginal farmer who subsisted on rice cultivation and cow rearing, had borrowed money from various sources and had even sold his land to repay loans recently.

Wayanad district had become Kerala’s Vidarbha with over 500 farmers committing suicide between 2001 and 2006 due to farm debts when the Congress-led UDF was in power. The district had got liberated from the tragedy by 2007 partly because of certain measures taken by the then LDF Government.

When the first suicides of this season took place almost two weeks ago, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had claimed that not all such deaths were farm-related, enraging the farming community across the State. Similar statements were made by a top Wayanad district Congress leader when a meeting was held to discuss the issue some days ago.

However, understanding the gravity of the situation later, the State Government suspended Revenue recovery proceedings on farm loans in Wayanad and sent a senior bureaucrat to the district to study the case. The report prepared by the official is expected to be considered by the Cabinet this week.

Farmers have claimed that steep fall in prices of produce like ginger and crop-loss due to climate change and pest affliction were the main reasons for the crisis. Associations of farmers say that most of those in distress were marginal farmers, many of whom have borrowed money from private lenders for cultivation on small patches owned by them or in leased plots.

Experts say that the moratorium announced by the State Government on repayments of loans taken from financial institutions in the Government sector would be of no use as far as over 80 per cent of the debt-trapped farmers were concerned as their loans were mostly from commercial banks and loan sharks.


The Pioneer, 21 November, 2011, http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/22116-3-more-farmers-commit-suicide-in-kerala.html


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