This is an archive article published on December 14, 2016
In two years, over 2,000 farmer suicides in Marathwada region
According Aurangabad Divisional Commissionerate, which keeps a track of suicides in eight districts of Marathwada, from January 1 to December 12 this year, 1,003 farmer suicides have been recorded.
Beed, for second year in a row, recorded the highest farmer suicides at 214.
FOR THE second consecutive year, suicides by farmers have crossed the staggering 1,000 mark in Marathwada region of Maharashtra in less than 12 months. In 2015, the collective figure of farmer suicides in the 12-month period stood at 1,130.
According to officials at the Aurangabad Divisional Commissionerate, which keeps a track of suicides in eight districts of Marathwada, from January 1 to December 12 this year, 1,003 farmer suicides have been recorded.
Osmanabad, which was picked as ‘zero suicide district’ in August 2015 by the state government has witnessed over 200 suicides in last 16 months.
Story continues below this ad
WATCH | Relief For Maharashtra Women & Child Welfare Minister Pankaja Munde
Beed, from where Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde, one of the aspirants for chief ministership post hails, for the second consecutive year, recorded the highest suicides at 214. Compared to last year, when by December end the suicide figure crossed 300 mark, the figure this time so far is much less, said Beed officials.
After Beed, Nanded comes second with 170 farmer suicides, followed by Osmanabad at 153, Aurangabad at 145 and Latur 108. Other districts such as Jalna, Parbhani, Hingoli, have recorded less than 100 suicides.
Of the 1,000 suicides, the families of 661 farmers who ended their lives have been paid Rs 1 lakh compensation each.
Story continues below this ad
Beed District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said farm distress was not the only reason responsible for farmer suicides. “Investigations have revealed that there are other causes like domestic issues for farmer suicides. But whatever may be the cause, every suicide of a farmer is worrisome for us. We are making efforts to bring down the suicide rate. Compared to 2015, the suicides this year in Beed are certainly down by more than 30 per cent,” he said.
In April this year, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had told The Indian Express that the government has put in several plans in place to reduce the farmer suicides and the efforts will take time to show results. However, the Congress has accused the state government of implementing the plans only on paper.
Former CM Prithviraj Chavan said, “Compared to our tenure, the Fadnavis rule has seen maximum farmer suicides, which clearly shows failure on part of the government. They only talk, but do little on the ground.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More