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AP tobacco crisis claims another life

Our Bureau

VIJAYAWADA, June 20

IN the tragic aftermath of the suicide of a tobacco farmer in Krishna district last week, his wife also took recourse to the extreme step on Tuesday.

Sources said Ms. Anasuyamma, the wife of the tobacco farmer, Mr. Muttur Mohana Rao, who had earlier committed suicide on Thursday night in Choutupalli village in Krishna district, also ended her life by consuming pesticide in the early hours of Tuesday.

Irate farmers blocked traffic on the national highway number nine at Kanchikacharla auction floor, demanding that the Government pay Rs. 5 lakhs to the next of kin of the dead farmer and take steps to resolve the tobacco crisis.

Dr. Y. Sivaji, the president of the Virginia Tobacco Farmers' Association who consoled the bereaved family, said that Anasuyamma had ended her life in the early hours and the tobacco scenario in the State was turning grim. He said the Governments at the State and Centre should act fast to inspire confidence among farmers that they could overcome the crisis.

His family members said Mohana Rao had raised cotton and redgram on three acres of his land and the cotton crop was lost due to defective seeds. He could get only five bags of redgram. He had leased five acres of land and a tobacco barn at a cost of Rs. 40,000 and borrowed more than Rs. 1 lakh from banks. He could sell only two quintals of the total yield of 30 on the auction floor in the first round and get Rs. 5,000. The amount was adjusted in his account towards the bank loan.

His son had borrowed Rs. 5,000 from a private money-lender four months ago for curing tobacco at an interest rate of 36 per cent and the loan could not be repaid due to the crisis in the tobacco market. On Thursday, the money-lender and his wife went to Mohana Rao's house and exerted pressure on him to pay back the loan. The harried farmer went to the nearby fields that night and consumed pesticide. He died on the way to a hospital at Kanchikacharla.