Date:23/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/23/stories/2008032359920800.htm

National

Not a bright Holi for these farmers

Arunkumar Bhatt

MUMBAI: Holi, the festival of colour celebrated to hail the new harvesting season, has failed to halt suicide by farmers in Maharashtra. Four farmers took their lives in Vidarbha and three ended their lives in north Maharashtra.

Vitthal Sakharam Daddmal, 22, of Goji village in Wardha district and Sukhdev Bapurao Surpadi, 30, of Kamthi in Nagpur district consumed poison. Manohar Mahadev Raut, 37, of Antargaon village in Yavatmal district jumped into a well.

A farmer of Buldhana district of the Vidarbha region also took his life, according to Vidarbha Jan Andolan leader Kishor Tiwari. All of them were indebted and had families to support.

In north Maharashtra, Gorakh Nikam of Nashik district and Atmaram Patil and Gokul Pawar of Dhule district also took their lives because of their inability to pay debts.

Mr. Tiwari said that with seven more deaths, the total number of farmers committed suicide in 2008 reached 220.

“One suicide is reported every eight hours despite the Union Government’s Rs.60,000-crore farm loan waiver,” he said, talking to The Hindu on the phone from Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district.

The suicides underscore an expert view that the loan waiver alone is not of much help to the farmers because of landholding restriction on its availability.

For, the agrarian crisis is much deeper, needing more measures for the revival of the agricultural economy of the region.