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Mandsaur agrarian unrest: The worth of a crore -Milind Ghatwai & Mohammad Hamza Khan

-The Indian Express

Six people died during the farmer protests in Mandsaur, MP, after which the government announced Rs 1 crore to each of the families. The Indian Express visits their homes to hear their stories — from a new-born who will never see her father to an aunt who asks: “Will we get the money? When?”

How money reached them

When five protesters died on June 6 in alleged police firing near Mandsaur, the epicentre of the farmers’ unrest, the government announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for each death and later doubled it to Rs 10 lakh. But with anger spreading to other parts of the state and the import of its political damage sinking in, by the end of the day, Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan announced an unprecedented compensation – Rs 1 crore and a job to a family member of each of the victims.

Opposition parties accused the BJP government of “bidding over dead bodies” and the district collector, since transferred and later suspended, publicly expressed his inability to pay the compensation, saying anything more than Rs 4 lakh was beyond his mandate.

A week later, as Chouhan travelled to meet the family members, his secretariat ensured that the money was electronically transferred to the bank accounts of the families. Citing exceptional circumstances, the secretariat sent a note-sheet with the CM’s signature to the General Administration Department (GAD) to clear the money. The GAD, in turn, sent a formal sanction letter to the collector, who later transferred the money from the local treasury.

Officials in the CM’s secretariat said there was no limit to the amount that can be sanctioned under the CM’s discretionary fund. “By its very definition, it’s the CM’s ‘discretion’ and the process is not bound by rules. The amount can be Rs 10,000 or Rs 1 crore,” a top officer in the secretariat told The Sunday Express.

In normal circumstances, the process is rigorous and requires verification.

The CM had doled out huge amounts in the past, but that was restricted to players such as P V Sindhu, who got Rs 50 lakh from the discretionary fund after she won the silver medal at the Rio Olympics. Soldiers from the state who die in the line of duty usually get Rs 10 lakh.

The BJP high command was reportedly unhappy with the hefty compensation, fearing it could set a precedent. When the sixth death, allegedly in police custody, took place in Mandsaur a few days later, family members and relatives of Ghanshyam Dhakad said they would not cremate his body until they were compensated with Rs 1 crore and a job. Since then, the Congress has demanded that every suicide by farmers be compensated with Rs 1 crore.

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