The Hindu : Nothing new in relief scheme for kin of suicide victims

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Nothing new in relief scheme for kin of suicide victims

By M.Madan Mohan

HUBLI MARCH 24. The Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna's announcement that a compensation of Rs. one lakh will be given to the families of farmers who committed suicide due to crop failure and loan burden may not cut ice with those who have been privy to the lackadaisical response of the Government to the matter.

For, there is nothing new in what Mr. Krishna has announced in his Budget speech.

He stated this two years ago in the presence of the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, when she visited Jamkhandi to inaugurate a private sugar factory. On that occasion, Mr. Krishna made it clear that the compensation would depend on the report by a magistrate.

But Mr. Krishna did not act on his announcement. Instructions were not given to Deputy Commissioners in this regard, and action was not taken on reports sent by some of them. The Government continued to ignore the plight of farmers.

There is no change in the announcement made by Mr. Krishna two years ago and in his recent Budget speech on the matter. Relief to the families of farmers who committed suicide has been the brainchild of the Congress.

The party, which was in the Opposition, espoused the cause when the first wave of suicide by farmers hit the State.

The Opposition leaders in the Legislative Assembly and the Council, Mallikarjun Kharge and H.K. Patil, respectively, made it an issue and forced the J.H. Patel Government to constitute a Joint House Committee in March 1999 to look into it.

The committee came up with 56 recommendations and called for a scientific study on the reasons for suicide by farmers.

However, when the Congress came to power, it ignored the report submitted by the committee.

Later when many cases of suicide by farmers were reported from various parts of the State, the Krishna Government was unable to respond to them quickly.

It was the former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda's gesture to the family of a farmer who had allegedly committed suicide, which forced the Government to act. Mr. Gowda visited Navalur near Dharwad and paid a token compensation of Rs. 10,000 to the victim's family.

He also promised the family members that he would help them clear the loan taken by the farmer.

The Government was forced to take cognisance of the problem at the instance of H.K. Patil, Minister for Water Resources, and a scheme for granting compensation emerged. A sum of Rs. one lakh was given to the victim's family at Navalur as compensation. When another suicide case was reported from Gamanagatti near Hubli, the Government did not cause any delay in announcing compensation.

But granting compensation was stopped after the third suicide case. The Chief Minister and some of his Cabinet colleagues came in the way of the scheme on the ground that it glorified suicide. Later, the Government started ignoring the issue on one pretext or the other even as the number of suicide cases increased.

When pressure from the people increased, the Government formed a committee under the chairmanship of Veeresh, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, with an instruction to it to conduct a scientific study of social, economic, and other causes for farmers to commit suicide. The committee was constituted in August 2001 and its report was received in April 2002.

The report proved to be more of an academic exercise than a study of the problems faced by the farmers due to the loan burden, crash in prices of farm produce, and crop failure.

With this being the situation, the question being asked is what prompted the Chief Minister to include the compensation part in the Budget?

The conditions for getting compensation are the same — based on reports by magistrates.

If the magistrates could not submit reports on suicide cases two years ago when the Chief Minister made the first announcement, there is no reason why they should do it now.

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