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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Debt, despair and death as farm crisis deepens -Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Debt, despair and death as farm crisis deepens -Sarbjit Dhaliwal

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published Published on May 15, 2015   modified Modified on May 15, 2015
-The Tribune

Grains Of Discontent: The damage to wheat crop due to untimely rain and hailstorm, followed by delayed payments, this rabi season has further stressed Punjab’s farmers. While the cost of farm inputs has risen manifold over the past few years, the profit margin is on a constant decline, thus making farming unviable. Unable to bear losses, several farmers have committed suicide in recent past

As the day breaks, he enters into the kitchen with grief writ large on his face. He has to act fast to prepare the food for his father, who is under depression, younger brother and grandfather before getting ready for the school.
 
With no woman left in the family, Gurvinder Singh, a Class XI student of Chhajli village, 25 km from Sangrur, has to perform the household chores although other family members also chip in.
 
Life was not always that cruel to this family, which owns a small chunk of land. Tragedy struck them on March 11 when Gurvinder’s mother Darshan Kaur allegedly committed suicide.
 
Gurvinder’s grandfather Najjar Singh says his daughter-in-law ended her life as she could not bear the loss caused to their wheat crop. “We own only 2 acres of land, but cultivate another 8 acres of leased land to supplement the family income. However, inclement weather caused a heavy damage to the crop. My son and his wife were under stress due to outstanding lease payment,” he says. The family was already under heavy debt and the damage to the crop has added to their woes.
 
What happened in the family of Najjar Singh is a glimpse of the plight of the state’s farming community. It also indicates that the state’s rural economy is going through its worst-ever crisis. It is on the verge of collapse if the number of suicides committed by farmers in recent years is any indication. A significant number of farmers ended their lives much before the harvesting of the crop owing to anxiety over the fact that not much was left in the fields to bring home. Take the case of 67-year-old Sukhdev Singh of Chhathe Nanhera village, near Sunam. In the second week of April, his wheat crop was inundated with rainwater. Left broken, Sukhdev allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself with a girder on the roof of his house.
 
Sukhdev once owned 12 acres of land and was a farmer activist. Over the years, he had to sell about 11 acres to repay his debt and was left with just 5 kanals of land. He had taken 5 acres on lease, but the damage to his crop left him dejected. His younger brother Gobind Singh, also a farmer activist, says farmer welfare is no longer on the agenda of either the state or the Union Government.
 
“My brother’s family is now unable to make both ends meet. The government has no policy to give jobs to the dependents of farmers who committed suicide,” he adds.
 
No government support

In the absence of a clear-cut policy to compensate farmers, the latter suffer when their crop fails. For instance, farmers got nothing for spending additional money on paddy due to highly deficit rainfall during the last season. Even for the loss suffered by them due to hailstorm in March, they got negligible relief.

The production level has already touched the saturation point. Without increasing productivity, farming cannot be made viable for small and marginal farmers having less than 10 acres of land. There is a need to implement the Swaminathan formula to fix the MSP of various crops. It should be backed by assured procurement for crops for which MSP is fixed.
 
Money-lenders exploit farmers

To sustain their living, they borrow money from commission agents and small moneylenders at a high rate of interest. They get trapped in the vicious debt cycle even if their one crop fails. They first sell their land to repay debt followed by other assets that often leads to depression which finally drives them to suicide. There is no regulation on the private money-lending business. Besides, there is a trend of spending lavishly on social functions even at the cost of borrowed money. Then there is dowry system that adds significantly to the farmers’ debt.
 
Crash in land prices

The fall in land prices has also hit the farming community. There was a boom in the land prices some years ago. Even in remote areas, land prices had gone up to Rs 40 lakh per acre and in areas close to big cities, the prices had event touched Rs 1 crore or more. The prices have now come down by 50 per cent across the state, particularly on the outskirts of Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Mohali.
 
Awaiting compensation

During a tour of Sangrur district, The Tribune team met families of several deceased farmers and landless labourers. None of the families has got any compensation. Baljit Kaur, a daily-wager, says her husband Balbir Singh committed suicide five years ago, but she was offered no relief. “I had no means of livelihood so I returned to my parents at Chhajli village. I support them by working in the fields,” she says. Similar is the plight of Jeet Singh whose son Mahinder Singh allegedly committed suicide. The state government recently approved the policy to give Rs 3 lakh to the families of the deceased farmers and landless labourers. Of this amount, Rs 2.5 lakh would be deposited in the bank as fixed deposit and Rs 50,000 would be given as cash.
 
Police role ‘negative’    

The distressed farming community is reportedly most annoyed with the “negative” police role in suicide cases. Farmers allege the police try their best to project even clear suicide cases as natural deaths. In many cases, the police even use pressure tactics on the bereaved family. “We have to often resort to agitation to get a suicide case registered. We do not know whether they have instructions from the government to record the suicide as natural death so that the family could not stake its claim for compensation,” says Darbara Singh, vice-president, BKU (Ugrahan).
The union has launched a campaign to educate farmers to state the exact reason of death while reporting the matter to the police.
 
Extending a helping hand

Sangrur’s Baba Nanak Educational Society not only funds the education of the children of farmers who committed suicide, but it also helps their families. The society along with the support of other social organisations is extending help to 455 such families.  Says Inderjit Singh Jaijee, society chairman, “It (farm suicides) has become a ‘ghar-ghar ki kahani’ (a case in every household) in Malwa, especially in certain blocks of Sangrur and Mansa districts.”
 
Munak Village with 93 deaths

Handing out a list to substantiate his claim, Jaijee says 2,300 farmers and landless labourers have committed suicide in Munak and Lehra sub-divisions of Sangur and Budhlada block of Mansa district in recent years. He says there is a village, Balran, near Munak where 93 persons have committed suicide and the panchayat has testified at least 83 such deaths through an affidavit. The list shows 65 suicides by farmers and landless labourers in Chotian village, 63 in Lehal Kalan, 46 Bakhoran Kalan, 41 Raidharana, 30 Gaga, 34 Daska, 35 Phaleda and 35 Sangatpura. In Kularian village of Budhlada block, 34 deaths have taken place while the count is more than double in Kishangarh (76).
 
Government orders fresh survey

The Punjab Government had deputed its three universities—Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; Punjabi University, Patiala; and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar—to conduct a door-to-door survey of farm suicide cases from 2000 to 2010. The survey had put the number of farmer and farm labourer suicides at 6,926 (3,954 were farmers). In 70% of the cases, debt-stress was found to be the reason. Disputing the figures put up by the universities, Jaijee says the number is far more than shown. He says he has his own team in each village to keep an account of such cases and maintain a record to help the needy families. Now, all the three universities have been told to update their data on suicide cases reported till March-end this year.

Major problems

* Farming is becoming increasingly unviable in the wake of rising input costs and falling profit margins
* The production level has already touched the saturation point
* Without increasing productivity, farming cannot be made viable for farmers having less than 10 acres
* To meet their obligations, most farmers depend on private money-lenders who often exploit them
* There is no clear-cut policy to compensate farmers in case of loss of crop due to varied reasons

The way out

* There is a need to implement the Swaminathan formula to fix the MSP of various crops
* It should be backed by assured procurement for crops for which MSP is fixed
* Diversification is the need of the hour as the wheat-paddy cropping is highly dependent on weather conditions
* Easy loans should be provided to farmers through cooperative societies or rural banks
* Crop insurance should be implemented

The Tribune, 14 May, 2015, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/debt-despair-and-death-as-farm-crisis-deepens/80316.html


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