In a submission made before the Rajya Sabha recently, the Agriculture ministry has revealed that every year in 2018, 2019 and 2020 over 5,000 farmers died by suicide across India.

Narendra Singh Tomar, who is the Minister of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare submitted data from the National Crime records Bureau in response to a question raised by Raghav Chaddha. According to the data, as many as 5,570 farmers died by suicide in 28 states and eight union territories in 2020. Of these 2,567 were from Maharashtra alone. Karnataka came in second with 1,072 deaths by suicide.

In 2019, across India, 5,945 farmers died by suicide, out of which 2,680 were from Maharashtra and 1,331 from Karnataka. In 2018, as many as 5,747 people died by suicide, of which 2,239 were from Maharashtra and 1,365 from Karnataka.

States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab and Chhattisgarh also recorded hundreds of deaths every year during this three-year period.

In 2020, Andhra Pradesh saw 546 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 466, Punjab 174 and Chhattisgarh 227. In 2019, Andhra Pradesh saw 628 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 491, Punjab 239 and Chhattisgarh 233. In 2018, Andhra Pradesh saw 365 suicide deaths, while Telangana saw 900, Punjab 229 and Chhattisgarh 182.

No suicide deaths were reported from Haryana, Jharkhand, Goa, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, and the Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

In response to these deaths, the Centre has instituted a variety of relief measures, such as providing loans at lower rates of interest, sometimes free of any collateral. But none of these appear to have helped arrest this tragic trend where those who till the land, are forced to take such a drastic step.

Farmers and agricultural labourers face economic distress on account of various reasons, including but not limited to – crop failure due to natural calamities such as droughts and floods, and subsequent lack of proper compensation, high cost of fertilisers, mounting interest on debts, etc. Moreover, many farmers groups argue that in the absence of Minimum Support Price (MSP) being calculated based on the C2+50 formula that was recommended by the Swaminathan Commission, the inadequate compensation for crops often makes farming as a whole an economically un-viable activity.

The entire answer may be read here:

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Pained by the news of yet another instance of a farmer dying by suicide, farmers’ leaders and organisations, on Thursday, appealed to protesters to keep their moral high an dnot take any rash or extreme steps. They assured protesters who have been holding demonstrations at Delhi borders to believe in the movement and assured them of success.

The latest farmer to die by suicide was a 45-year-old who was a regular participant of farmers’ protests since November 2020. He had travelled from Roorkee village in Punjab to voice his dissent against the three farm laws. Farmers group Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) expressed its sincere condolences to the martyr’s family.

So far, well over 650 farmers have been martyred during the peasant struggle all over India. Farmer leaders appealed to all protesters not to lose faith in the movement. “The movement is growing stronger and has forced BJP governments on the backfoot again and again. It will end by securing all its demands,” said the SKM.

Continuing protests, farmers in Ferozepur, Punjab called for a chakka jam (traffic blockade) on Thursday, demanding an FIR against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders following the violent clashes on Wednesday. While cases have already been registered against SAD leader Vardev Singh (Noni Mann) and his driver, for attempted murder, farmers also demand action against former SAD MLA Jintendra Singh Jindu, whose name was mysteriously excluded from the list of accused in the FIR. Farm unions also demanded their immediate arrest and recovery of the arms allegedly used to open fire on farmers.

In neighbouring Haryana, the indefinite dharna in Hansi district continues at the mini-secretariat. Leaders demand repeal of FIRs against three farmers alleging that BJP MP Ram Chander Jangra ordered a lathi-charge on farmers seriously injuring farmers Kuldeep Rana and Shekhar Chand. The former’s family received a commitment of monthly support of Rs 10,000- (ten thousand rupees) and cash support of Rs 2 lakhs from an independent MLA of Haryana, said SKM.

However, state police continue to say that no one was injured in their lathi-charge. Instead, farmers said the state government provided Personal Security Officers (PSOs) to some senior officials.

“This decision ignores the fact that in Kuldeep Rana’s case, it was the PSO of the BJP MP who attacked the protester grievously! In a state where the Chief Minister himself was heard instigating violence against protesting farmers and where a senior official was caught on camera asking police to break the heads of protesting farmers, this decision of PSOs is an outright attack on peacefully protesting farmers,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal in a joint press release.

SKM asked the BJP-JJP government to stop the attacks on protesting farmers and withdraw cases against them.

Related:

Punjab: Tensions rise, clashes break out between farmers and SAD leader
New farmer suicide data showcases continuing social inequalities
Haryana: Tensions rise between farmers and BJP leaders
50 farmers martyred in October alone!

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While India’s mainstream media focused on Bollywood scandals, farmers group Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) reported another farmer suicide in Sudhar village of Punjab on October 4, 2021 after the person learnt about the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.

According to the SKM, the 50-year-old farmer was found with a note that talked about how he was “upset” about the death of peacefully protesting farmers in the district. Police said the note also condemned the central government’s attitude towards the demand for repeal of the three farm laws. He is survived by three children and his wife.

His death once again rejects the notion that there is no rage among the people against the death of nine people: four farmers, a local journalist and four others. They were all killed when a vehicle with Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish on board mowed them down. Ashish a.k.a Monu also shot at people during this incident.

With many civil society organisations, political parties voicing support, Central Trade Unions (CTUs) on October 6 joined the group demanding justice for farmers and journalist Raman Kashyap.

On Tuesday, CTUs like INTUC, AITUC, HMS and others in Delhi condemned the “gruesome killing” of protesting farmers in the district before decrying the privatisation of PSUs under the National Monetization Pipeline project.

“The unfortunate incident exposes the real face of the ruling party in the central government and in the state, in the background of the propaganda blitz let loose by it in the run up to the Assembly elections early next year,” said CTUs in a joint press release.

They also condemned the police action for disallowing Opposition leaders, farmers and trade union leaders from visiting the families of the deceased. Members demanded that Union Minister Ajay Mishra immediately step down from his post, while his son Ashish be tried expeditiously for his alleged crime.

CTUs asserted that they stand with farmers in their demand for the withdrawal of the three laws and the Electricity (Amendment) Bill along with the withdrawal of four labour codes.

Farmers group Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) leader Rakesh Tikait has warned authorities to accept all farmers’ demands within a week of the incident. I authorities fail to do so, farmers will strengthen their struggle.

Related:

SKM condemns “bhakta media” for Lakhimpur Kheri massacre
Lakhimpur Kheri: Ashish Mishra still not arrested
Lakhimpur Kheri farmer deaths: Families to light candles, not pyres until post mortem
Lakhimpur Kheri deaths: A Timeline
I was not in the car: Ashish Mishra’s feeble defence in Lakhimpur Kheri farmer deaths
‘Godi media’ on a rampage: Mowing down of farmers labeled ‘clashes’, victims ‘khalistanis’

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The central government’s decision to not release the report of the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18 allegedly precipitated the resignation of PC Mohanan, the acting head of the National Statistical Commission (NSC)–which is tasked to “evolve policies, priorities and standards in statistical matters”–on January 29, 2018.

The NSC had approved the report of the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18, which the government has not released, Mohanan was reported to have told the newspaper Mint as one of the reasons for his resignation.

Many commentators questioned the government’s motives for not releasing the jobs data.

“The Indian government’s withholding of the National Sample Survey employment/ unemployment report, which is expected to reflect job losses, undermines the ability of the electorate to make informed decisions,” Sabina Dewan, president and executive director of JustJobs Network, a research organisation focussed on strategies for job creation & workforce development, told IndiaSpend, adding, “A functional democracy is premised on an informed electorate.”

“The main issue here can be demonetisation,” Jayati Ghosh, a development economist and professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, told IndiaSpend. “By doing this the government is making an effort to show itself in a good light.”

Lack of data prevents central and state governments from making informed decisions, Ghosh said, adding that it similarly affects citizens who need to plan for their savings, investments and other issues.

It creates economic opacity that prevents businesses and investors from making good decisions, Dewan said, and prevents NGOs and other development-oriented organisations from doing their work in an evidence-based manner. “How are we to hold government accountable if they control and censure information that should be publicly accessible?” she said, “We risk going down a very slippery slope if government withholds such data that should help in determining the policies that will actually help address the jobs crisis.”

The government issued a statement on January 30, 2019, saying the NSC members who had resigned–Mohanan and agricultural economist JV Meenakshi–had not raised their concerns at any of the NSC meetings. “NSSO is processing the quarterly data for the period July 2017 to December 2018 and the report will be released thereafter,” it added.
 

Source: IndiaSpend research

The accidents and suicides report, which provides information on farmer suicides and is brought out by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), has not been released for four years now. “The Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2016 will be published in the third or last week of December,” an NCRB official was reported to have told News18 in December 2017.

“We are constantly being told that the data is missing but it is not true because NCRB continues to collect data,” Ghosh sid, “The data is only suppressed.”

Data on foreign direct investment, brought out every quarter by the department of industrial policy and production (DIPP), have not been released since June 2018, despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) providing it with regular inputs, according to this Business Today report published on January 29, 2019.

When the central government released the socio-economic profile of the population generated through the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) in 2015, it withheld data on caste despite demands from opposition parties and ministers within the government, this report in The Economic Times said in September 2018. The government blamed the delay on the enormity of the task due to India’s size and population; for instance, Census enumerators had covered 330 million households and drawn up 4.6 million entries, which needed 355 12-hour workdays to read, according to this Hindustan Times report from July 2015.

“All surveys should be put into the public domain so that researchers and analysts can examine and critique the data quality and also generate additional analyses that can serve the policy community,” Purnima Menon, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, told IndiaSpend. The National Family Health Survey and the National Sample Survey, for instance, can be downloaded directly from the websites, she said. “It’s fantastic to see the various data and research outputs generated from these,” she added.

Citizens deserve to know whether major economic reforms such as demonetisation and introduction of the Goods and Services Tax have had an impact on employment, Dewan added. “A lack of information, or withholding information that is available, allows speculation and misunderstandings to persist,” she said, “The jobs discourse is rife with speculation and misunderstandings. In part because of the lack of reliable and systematic data collection on jobs. Why then should we not release the data that is available?”

Recently, there have also been concerns raised over data going missing from the websites of centrally-sponsored schemes. For example, several sets of data were removed from the Swachh Bharat-Gramin website, including data on expenditure, conversion of insanitary toilets which foster manual scavenging, and several details of toilet construction, as IndiaSpend reported on October 6, 2018.

The report of a Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey–started towards the end of 2016 to create comprehensive nutritional profiles of preschoolers (0-4 years), school-age children (5-14 years) and adolescents (15-19 years)–has been ready but not released. The report would help reorient India’s nutrition policy and serve as a baseline to evaluate the progress of recently launched initiatives such as the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (‘national adolescent health programme’), Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (‘national child health programme’) and the National Iron-Plus Initiative.

“Many countries and organisations are moving towards public release of surveys, and this is good practice because the research community can really contribute to the knowledge base when the data is publicly available,” Menon said.

If the government is not releasing the report because of quality concerns or other methodological concerns, it should say so, Dewan said. “At the very least, the public, experts and even other policymakers that can use this information to make informed decisions, deserve an explanation,” Dewan added.

(Salve is a senior analyst with IndiaSpend. With additional inputs from Jasmin Nihalani, a student of journalism and mass communication, and an intern with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Farmers stage a demonstration in New Delhi in June 2017. Apart from meagre farm income, rising healthcare costs increase farmer debt–now the primary reason in more than 50% farmer suicides in India.
 
Nearly 70% of India’s 90 million agricultural households spend more than they earn on average each month, pushing them towards debt, which is now the primary reason in more than half of all suicides by farmers nationwide, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of various government data.
 
The failing economics of such farms–agricultural households in the south are most indebted–are exacerbated by additional loans that families take to meet health issues, leaving them with diminished ability to invest in farming. Outstanding loans for health reasons doubled over a decade to 2012, and loans for farm business fell by about half over the same period.
 
These data help understand the nature of India’s farm crisis in the light of the recent spate of farmer protests across states to demand loan waivers and better prices for their crops.

 

 
These 62.6 million households spending more than they earn had land holdings of one hectare or less, according to the 2013 situation assessment survey of farm households by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the latest available data.  In contrast, 0.35 million (0.39%) households owning more than 10 hectares of land had an average monthly income of Rs 41,338 and consumption expenditure of Rs 14,447, thereby maintaining a monthly surplus of Rs 26,941.
 
Nearly 85% of all operational farm holdings in the country are smaller than two hectares in size, NSSO data show.
 
No more than a third of Indian small and marginal farmers have access to institutional credit, as IndiaSpend reported on June 8, 2017, which suggests that loan waivers may not help them.
 

         
 

Source: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Note: ‘Income’ includes earnings from all sources, including non-farm business and wage labour
 
Households in southern India are most indebted
 
Andhra Pradesh has the highest share of indebted agricultural households (93%), followed by Telangana (89%) and Tamil Nadu (82.1%). The nationwide figure is 52%.
 

Source: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
 

Indebtedness was listed as the primary reason for 55% of farmer suicides in 2015 and more than 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995, IndiaSpend reported on January 2, 2017.
 
Rising healthcare costs swell the debt burden
 
Apart from meagre farm income, rising healthcare costs increase farmer debt. Outstanding loans for health reasons have doubled from 3% in 2002 to 6% in 2012, according to a 2015 analysis of NSSO data by the National Bank For Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). Meanwhile, loans for farm business fell by half over a decade, from 58% in 2002 to 29% in 2012, as IndiaSpend reported on July 21, 2015.
 

Source: National Bank For Agriculture and Rural Development 2015
 
Nearly half (48%) of overnight trips made by millions of Indians in rural areas are for medical purposes. The corresponding figure for urban areas is 25%.
 
More than half of India’s rural population uses private healthcare services, which are four times as costly as public healthcare, and can cost the poorest 20% of Indians more than 15 times their average monthly expenditure, as IndiaSpend reported on July 16, 2016.
 
“In all the farm households I’ve visited, where people have killed themselves, the single largest component of family debt was health costs,” said P Sainath, Ramon Magsaysay Award winner who pioneered farmer suicide reporting in India.
 
Loan waivers are not a solution
 
Recently, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs 30,000 crore, respectively. India faces a cumulative loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore ($49.1 billion), or 2.6% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2016-17, IndiaSpend reported on June 15, 2017.
 
However, indebtedness is a symptom and not the root cause of India’s farm crisis, according to a 2007 expert group report on agricultural indebtedness. Chaired by economist R Radhakrishna, the group reported that the average farm household borrowing had not been “excessive”, and laid the blame on factors such as “stagnation in agriculture, increasing production and marketing risks, institutional vacuum and lack of alternative livelihood opportunities”.
 
In his 2016 budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised to double farmers’ income by 2022. “We are grateful to our farmers for being the backbone of the country’s food security. We need to think beyond food security and give back to our farmers a sense of income security. Government will, therefore, reorient its interventions in the farm and non-farm sectors to double the income of the farmers by 2022,” he had said.
 
Subsequently, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar outlined a seven-point strategy to double farm income, which included measures to step up irrigation, provide better quality seeds and prevent post-harvest losses, as Mint reported on June 17, 2017.
 
These efforts face a range of challenges, as IndiaSpend said in this March 30, 2016, story. These include: Increasing costs of farm input such as seeds, fertilisers and irrigation; irrelevance of minimum support price for government procurement; absence of marketing infrastructure such as warehouses and cold storages; and the fact that 85% of farmers do not have insurance.
 
Clearly, India’s farm crisis calls for a multi-pronged solution that addresses each of these challenges, and loan waiver is only one part.
 
(Saha is an MA Gender and Development student at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.)
 
Courtesy: India Spends

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Overall, the figures are lower than the 1,023 cases reported during the same span last year, when the state was in the grip of a severe drought and water crisis. Subsequently, the state experienced a good monsoon.

Within the cotton belt of Vidarbha, the bulk of farmer suicides are from the five districts of Amravati, which reported 324 cases. This is not much lower than the 339 cases reported during this period last year. So far, 85 cases have been reported from Nagpur division. Marathwada region, which had experienced successive years of drought, reported 291 cases till April this year, or 34% of the total. Last year, by April, the figure was 375.

North Maharashtra reported 132 farmer suicides by the end of April, or 15% of the total cases. The Konkan belt reported only one case so far, while the sugar belt of Western Maharashtra has reported 19 cases, according to revenue department figures.

The Opposition has been demanding a farm loan waiver, the issue which led to its Sangharsh Yatra. But the state has refused to grant it, saying it would cost Rs 30,500 crore and that the earlier waiver did not stem suicides.

Farm leaders say the government has not done enough to address the critical issues of pricing and farm loans. "As we face the monsoon, many farmers who have not been able to repay existing loans will not be eligible for fresh loans," says farm leader Vijay Jawandhia. Pointing to the tur dal glut, he said the government did not act quickly enough to impose restrictions on imports.

Farmer suicides (January-April 2017)

Konkan | 1

North Maharashtra | 132

Western Maharashtra | 19

Marathwada | 291
 

Vidarbha | 409
 

Total | 852
 

2016 | 1,023 
 

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170 leading activists, economists, sociologists urge the central government to respond with some sense of urgency and purpose to the rural crisis which has resulted in "massive distress movement of populations, causing broken childhoods, interrupted education, life in camps, city pavements or crowded shanties"

The government's response to the massive drought being faced by large parts of the country "is sadly listless, lacking in both urgency and compassion", 170 eminent citizens wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The signatories, including leading activists, economists and sociologists such as Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander, Jean Dreze, Jayati Ghosh and Ajit Ranade, noted that the crisis has resulted in "massive distress movement of populations, causing broken childhoods, interrupted education, life in camps, city pavements or crowded shanties".

They urged Modi to make "rapid amends, by implementing all the traditional relief measures as well as by ensuring full implementation of the National Food Security Act 2013 and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 in letter and spirit".

Here is the full text of the letter.

Dear Mr Prime Minister,
We wish to convey our deep collective anxiety about the enormous suffering of the rural poor in large parts of India’s countryside as they are battling drought, often for the second or even third consecutive year. In areas where rains have failed, farmers who depend mainly on rainwater to irrigate their crops have no or very low crop yields. Those who rely on irrigation are also affected, with groundwater sinking and streams and reservoirs drying up. All this adds to chronic agrarian distress reflected in a massive slowdown in agricultural growth during the last few years, with no imminent signs of recovery.

The enormous distress – of food, drinking water, work, fodder for animals, and dignity – of hundred of millions is utterly unacceptable. We demand that the central government under your leadership acknowledges these failures and makes rapid amends, by implementing all the traditional relief measures as well as by ensuring full implementation of the National Food Security Act 2013 and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 in letter and spirit.

Signed
1. 1 Aruna Roy, senior activist, Rajasthan
2. Jean Dreze, Economist
3. Jayati Ghosh, Economist
4. Harsh Mander, Activist, Writer
5. Satish Deshpande, Academic, Sociologist
6. Deep Joshi, senior environmentalist and water activist
7. Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus, Economist, Senior academician
8. Amit Bhaduri, Professor Emeritus, Senior Economist
9. Vijay Vyas, Professor Emeritus, Senior Economist
10. Utsa Patnaik, Professor and Senior Economist
11. Arundhati Roy, Writer
12. Admiral Ramdas, former Chief of Naval Staff
13. Lalita Ramdas, activist, Maharashtra
14. Naseeruddin Shah, Actor
15. Brinda Karat, Women’s leader, Politician
16. Medha Patkar, Activist, politician, women’s leader
17. Shabana Azmi, Actor
18. Kavitha Kuruganti, Activist, leader of farmer’s groups
19. Nivedita Menon, Academic
20. Nandita Das, actor
21. Mukul Kesavan, writer
22. Leela Samson, dancer
23. Ashok Vajpeyi, writer
24. Justice Rajinder Sachar, senior jurist
25. Syeda Hameed, women’s leader, former member Planning Commission
26. Shyam Benegal, filmmaker
27. Himanshu Thakkar, environmentalist
28. Wajahat Habibullah, former Chief Information Commissioner
29. Deepak Sandhu, former Chief Information Commissioner
30. Shailesh Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner
31. Uma Chakravarty, historian
32. Ritwick Dutta, environmental legal activist
33. Trilochan Shastry, academic
34. Jagdeep Chhokar, academic
35. Advocate Vrinda Grover
36. Nandini Sundar, Sociologist
37. Shekhar Singh, RTI activist
38. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker
39. Prof C.P.Chandrasekhar, labour economist
40. Dilip Simeon, academic
41. Prithvi Sharma, activist, also on behalf of ICAN
42. Maja Daruwala, senior human rights activist
43. Mathew Cherian, Helpage
44. TM Krishna, Musician, Writer
45. Anand Patwardhan, filmmaker
46. Lalit Mathur, former civil servant
47. Kavita Srivastava, PUCL, Rajasthan
48. Anjali Bhardwaj, RTI activist
49. Achin Vinayak, academic and activist, Delhi
50. Ram Rehman, photographer
51. Pamela Philipose, journalist
52. Tushar.A.Gandhi , academic
53. Rita Anand, senior journalist
54. Nirmala Lakshman, senior journalist
55. Tripurari Sharma, Drama and Theater, playright
56. Harsh Sethi, writer
57. Madhu Bhaduri, former diplomat
58. Sharmila Tagore, Actor
59. Amitabh Mukhopadhyay, former auditor, CAG
60. Mridula Mukherjee, historian
61. Aditya Mukherjee, historian
62. Amita Baviskar, academic
63. Arundhati Dhuru, activist, UP
64. Kavita Krishnan, activist, leader of women’s groups
65. Reetika Khera, Economist
66. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker
67. Baba Adhav, labour leader
68. Achyut Das, activist, Odisha
69. Ajit Ranade, economist
70. Kalpana Kannabiran, sociologist, lawyer
71. Vasanth Kannabiran, teacher and activist, Andhra
72. Paul Divakar, dalit activist
73. Abha Sur, writer, academic
74. Rajni Bakshi, writer
75. Ravi Chopra, activist, Uttarakhand
76. Neelabh Mishra, writer
77. Poornima Chikarmane, Pune
78. Zoya Hasan , academic, political scientist
79. Shabnam Hashmi, activist
80. Rebecca John, academic
81. Anandalakshmy, academic
82. Smita Gupta, Economist, Head of economic cell, AIDWA
83. Praveen Jha, Economist
84. Gautam Navlakha, senior activist
85. Venkatesh Nayak, RTI activist
86. Seema Mustafa, journalist, editor, The Citizen
87. Bela Bhatia, academic
88. Bezwada Wilson, senior activist
89. Prof. Haragopal, academic
90. Sumit Chakravarty, Editor, Mainstream
91. Gargi Chakravarty, Women’s activist
92. Patricia Uberoi
93. Kamal Chenoy, senior academic
94. Janaki Nair, academic
95. Vipul Mudgal, journalist
96. Deepa Sinha, Right to Food activist
97. Himanshu, activist
98. Uma Pillai, former civil servant
99. Nikhil Dey, activist, Rajasthan
100. D.N.Rath, academic
101. Abey George,academic
102. Mahesh Pandya, ICAN
103. Jyothi Krishnan, academic
104. Balram, activist, Jharkhand
105. AL Rangarajan, ICAN
106. Rajaram Singh
107. Rameshwar Prasad, ICAN
108. Anand Murugesan, academic
109. Abha Bhaiya, women’s activist
110. Sagar Rabari, activist, Gujarat
111. Dhirendhra Singh
112. C. Rammanohar Reddy, former editor EPW, senior writer
113. Nandini K Oza, water activist, Maharasthra
114. Osama Manzar, Digital Empowerment Foundation
115. Rakesh Sharma
116. Pankti Jog, RTI activist
117. Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, RTI activist, Telangana
118. Subrat Das, economist
119. Umesh Anand, editor, Civil Society
120. Charul,singer, cultural activist
121. Vinay, singer, writer, musician, activist
122. Maya Caroli
123. Ashwini Kulkarni, activist, Pune
124. Vibha Puri Das
125. Surjit Das
126. Amrita Johri, RTI activist
127. Madhuresh Kumar, activist
128. Ankur Sarin
129. Dipak Dholakia
130. Navdeep Mathur
131. Harinesh, activist, Gujarat
132. Persis Ginwalla
133. Shamsul Islam, theatre activist
134. Prafulla Samantara, activist, Odisha
135. Lingraj Azad, activist, Odisha
136. Sunilam, activist, Madhya Pradesh
137. Aradhana Bhargava
138. Meera Chaudhary, activist
139. Suniti SR, activist, Pune
140. Suhas Kolhekar, activist Pune
141. Prasad Bagwe
142. Gabrielle Dietrich, leader of Women’s groups
143. Geetha Ramakrishnan, activist Tamil Nadu
144. C.R. Neelkandan
145. P Chennaiah, activist Telangana
146. Ramakrishnan Raju, activist, Andhra
147. Richa Singh, activist, Uttar Pradesh
148. Sister Cella
149. Vimal Bhai, activist, Himachal Pradesh
150. Jabar Singh, activist
151. Anand Mazgaonkar
152. Krishnakanth
153. Kamayani Swami, activist, Bihar
154. Ashish Ranjan, activist
155. Mahendra Yadav, activist
156. Faisal Khan, activist, Haryana
157. JS Walla
158. Kailash Meena, activist, Rajasthan
159. Amitava Mitra
160. Aveek Saha
161. BS Rawat
162. Rajendra Ravi
163. Shabnam Shaikh
164. Mahesh Pandya
165. H.S. Shylendra
166. Iqbalkhan Pulli
167. Soumen Ray
168. Ramachandra Prasad, ICAN
169. Ravi M.
170. Dipak Dholakia
 

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During her tour of three districts of Marathwada which are reeling under a severe drought, former Rajya Sabha and CPI(M)’s politbureau member, Brinda Karat found the Maharashtra government’s relief schemes woefully inadequate and the local administration lethargic. The result: Agricultural labourers as well as kisans (famers) are in deep distress.

Highlights of her findings:

• The publicised relief measures are in reality either non-existent or highly adequate.
• The government’s promise of providing 150 days of work under MGNREGA is just that: an empty promise.
• In one of the villages Karat visited, labourers had not been paid for 6 weeks. This in effect is pushing them into a debt trap.
• The acute drought has made the soil hard and stony. Because of the unrealistic schedule of rates, though the daily wages are pegged at Rs. 191 per day, no labourer is able to earn more than Rs. 125.
• With successive drought years, farmers are heavily in debt. Already in the first 100 days of the current year, 320 farmers have committed suicide. A majority of the farmers have yet to receive compensation for crop loss for the previous year. Instead of relief from government, farmers are receiving notices from banks adding to their trauma and despair.
• With water and fodder in short supply, desperate farmers have to sell off their cattle at half the price.
• Despite the publicity of water being supplied to villages by the administration, most of the water requirement is being met through private parties who are reaping huge profits.

In a memorandum submitted to the commissioner, Aurangabad, Karat has pointed to some urgent remedial measures. Here is the full text of her memorandum:
 
The Commissioner,
Aurangabad Division
 
Dear Shri Dangat ji,

The Kisan Sabha is holding a campaign on the issues of acute agrarian distress in the Marathwada region. As part of the campaign I had been to a number of villages, cattle fairs, cattle shelters and met approximately 200 kisans and agricultural and MNREGA workers from around  15-20 villages from the districts of Aurangabad, Beed and Jalna.

The Kisan Sabha will undoubtedly give you a comprehensive charter of demands in the coming days. Meanwhile, I would like to draw your urgent attention to the following issues. These are only related to the immediate short term issues which obviously have to be within the framework of a long term plan to deal with water scarcity, water conservation, forestry, etc:

1. The declared government schemes are not seen on the ground in large parts of the area and where they are in operation they are inadequate. The depth of the distress requires administrative measures in a mission mode to bring relief. Unfortunately this is not the case as the following examples show:

2. MGNREGA: I was told by the collector of Beed district that the number of workers on MGNREGA sites has increased from 10,000 to 55,000. However, in all the villages I had reports from there was no work available, not even for the large number of cane cutting migrant workers who have returned to their villages and are desperately looking for work. The government promise of providing 150 days of work is a mockery in the face of this reality.

Even assuming that the official records are all of real workers and not substantially "ghost" workers, as is being alleged by many of the workers seeking work, it is clearly inadequate. With no agricultural work available, the importance of MGNREGA cannot be overemphasised. I believe this requires much greater attention and monitoring to provide work on demand as mandated by the law. 

3. I met MGNREGA workers at the worksite in village Takarwan. They were wearing black ribbons on their wrists as a sign of protest since they have not been paid a single paisa since the work on the project started one and a half months ago. When I checked with the collector, he said that the funds were slow in coming but that it would be done shortly.

It is extreme callousness that in times of such distress wages for work completed are not paid forcing the workers into debt. This is an example of government created and driven debt. I would request you to ensure immediate payment as per the law.

4. The other critical issue on MGNREGA is the current schedule of rates. The soil has turned hard and stony. Yet the work norms are so high as to be impossible for any worker to fulfill. I was informed by the women workers that they have to dig and lift approximately 5,000 kilos of mud a day to reach the work norm for a minimum wage. This is the extent of the cruelty of the government to deprive the workers of the minimum wage. 

It is no surprise therefore that according to the measurement of work done, not a single worker is eligible for the full wage of Rs 191 but the average works out to around Rs 125. It is urgently required to ensure payment of the full wage and reduction of the SORs.

5. As far as kisans are concerned the urgent issue is that of immediate debt relief. Instead, banks are sending notices leading to further trauma and distress. As it is in this region till mid-April, the suicides this year are as high as 320.

Fruit growing kisans such as orange farmers stated that they have had to cut and burn their dried up trees for lack of water. In Beed district it was said that the compensation for crop loss of last year has still not been received by the vast majority of kisans. This again shows the absence of sensitivity on behalf of the government. It is essential to ensure debt relief as well as crop compensation on a war footing.

6. Distress sale of animals is a critical issue driven by debt as well as by the huge expenditure required to maintain the animals with no water availability and no fodder. In the cattle fair at Pachod in Paitha tehsil, Aurangabad, kisans were selling a pair of bullocks priced at Rs 70,000 for just Rs. 30,000-35,000. This is linked to the failure to provide water and cheap fodder.

There are two issues which need to be dealt with urgently. Firstly, the scheme for cattle shelters if implemented properly can be of great help. But these are far too inadequate in number. Also the government must directly run these shelters instead of handing them over to societies which are not being paid in time leading to further problems. Secondly, the amount of assistance does not cover the actual cost of maintaining the animal.

It was shocking to hear that of the amount of Rs 70 rupees to be disbursed per animal pay day,  Rs 8 was being cut by government for the projected price of the manure from each animal per day. This is perhaps the most bizarre approach which depicts the callousness of the government and should be removed and adequate expenditure provided.

7. While the government has publicised its efforts to provide water, in the areas I had visited the main supplies were provided by private  water companies. There were reports of a nexus between government suppliers and private companies.  In any case, it is a fact that the private water companies are making windfall profits, exploiting the desperate need of the people for minimum supplies of water which the government has utterly failed to provide, leaving the field open for private suppliers. There is no regulation or control over the prices being charged. This is an urgent issue which needs to be addressed by the administration.

These are a few of the issues which I wanted to bring to your attention. The deep distress is the region demands a much more comprehensive and mission approach which is sadly lacking.

Yours sincerely,
Brinda Karat

(Along with  colleagues in the Kisan Sabha and CPI(M) including comrades PS Ghadge,  Bhausaheb Zhirpe, B Potbhare and B Bhumbe).

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