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This is an archive article published on November 7, 2016

Around 900 farmer suicides in drought-hit Marathwada this year

Compare this with 2013 and 2014, when a total of 600 suicides were reported in Marathwada. And between 2006 and 2012, less than 400 farmer suicides were reported on a yearly basis.

farmers, farmer suicides, Marathwada drought, Congress, devdendra Fadnavis, bjp, maharashtra, bjp maharashtra, india news Marathwada has been in the grip of severe drought in the last four years — two during the Congress-NCP regime and two during the BJP-Sena-RPI government.

Around 900 farmer suicides were reported in the eight districts of Marathwada region between January and October this year. During the same period last year, 700 farmer suicides were reported, according to officials at the Aurangabad divisional commissionerate.

Compare this with 2013 and 2014, when a total of 600 suicides were reported in Marathwada. And between 2006 and 2012, less than 400 farmer suicides were reported on a yearly basis. The year 2015 recorded the highest number of farmer suicides — 1,133 from January to December — in 10 years.

Marathwada has been in the grip of severe drought in the last four years — two during the Congress-NCP regime and two during the BJP-Sena-RPI government. A year ago, the state government picked Osmanabad — which has seen several suicides — to implement a “zero-suicide district” plan.

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Since the plan was set in motion, the number of suicides in Osmanabad has in fact gone up — from 136 between August 2014 and August 2015 to 172 between August 2015 and August 2016. “They spoke about zero suicides and look what shocking figures have emerged in Osmanabad. It is a telling commentary on the Devendra Fadnavis government’s failure to save the lives of farmers,” said Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant.

Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said, “The Fadnavis government only makes tall claims. If more than 1,000 farmer suicides have taken place in two years in Marathwada, it shows the complete failure of the government in taking care of the farmers,” he said.

The Fadnavis government maintained that it had put in place several plans to check farmer suicides, but a turnaround would take time.

According to Beed district collector Naval Kishore Ram, the plans being implemented include offering rice and wheat at Rs 2/kg and Rs 3/kg to farmer families, critical health care benefits, crop insurance, counselling and guidance. “Surgeries for critical ailments like heart and kidney problem are being performed free of cost in government hospitals and empanelled private hospitals,” he added.

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Osmanabad district collector Prashant Narnavare said they had undertaken mass counselling and guidance programmes for farmers. “This is being done through expert doctors. First we identify farmers who are mentally disturbed due to various reasons. We call them for counselling with experts,” he said.

Farmer suicides are not just due to crop failure or mounting debts, Ram added. “There are several factors behind their suicide. It could be family pressure or illness,” he said.

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

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