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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Battleground Punjab: The story of the missing farmers -Subodh Varma

Battleground Punjab: The story of the missing farmers -Subodh Varma

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published Published on Jan 31, 2017   modified Modified on Jan 31, 2017
-The Economic Times

A small village called Khanauri in Punjab's Sangrur district has become a macabre hotspot. People come here to peer down at the Bhakra Main Line canal hoping to catch sight of dead bodies that get held up on the sluice gates. They are not ghouls ­ they are looking for kin or friends who have disappeared.

The canal runs unhindered like an arrow for 159 km through Punjab's eastern districts and Khanauri barrage is the first point where the flowing water is slowed down. In the past few years, most of the bodies that turned up at Khanauri were of farmers who had committed suicide, mainly because of debt and economic crisis.

In Punjab as a whole, estimates of farmers' suicides range from a few thousand to tens of thousands. A study by three universities estimated that between 2000 and 2011, nearly 7,000 farmers committed suicide, most of them because of debt.

A new study for 2011-15 by the same three universities, is in the final stages of data processing. Balwinder Singh Tiwana, professor of economics at Punjabi University , Patiala and one of those involved in the survey told TOI that 3,000 to 4,000 farmers committed suicide in this most recent period.

Farmers' suicides are but one chilling symptom of the crisis gripping Punjab's agriculture, once thought of as a shining path for the rest of India. Its sweep is so wide and the effects so pervasive that every political formation in Punjab's ongoing election campaign is battling to assure farmers that it has the best solutions.

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The Economic Times, 30 January, 2017, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/56867529.cms


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