Families of 18 farm suicide victims yet to receive government assistance in Andhra Pradesh, say NGOs

The members of the HRF and the RSV visited the affected families in East Godavari and West Godavari between March 23 and 25. Notably, the 18 suicides took place in Ramachandrapuram and Rajahmundry revenue divisions in East Godavari district, and in Eluru division in West Godavari district.

“We have no hesitation in stating that the families of the deceased farmers are eligible for the financial assistance package of Rs 7 lakh under GO 43. In all these cases, it can clearly be established that there was a correlation between farm-related operations and economic distress leading to suicide. However, they have not received any assistance from the government so far. We were shocked to learn that the RDO-headed three-member verification and certification committee had not visited even a single of these 18 families as is mandated under GO 43. In many of these cases, even the mandal-level committee, with the MRO as chairman, has not gone to the villages and spoken with family members. These families have literally been abandoned by the government,” said VS Krishna, a member of the HRF coordination committee.

The HRF said it found that all 18 tenant farmers ended their lives because of the appalling state of institutional credit leading to excessive reliance on private money lenders resulting in high indebtedness. “These farmers also lacked access to reliable and reasonably priced inputs and a remunerative price for their output. Successive governments have failed in their obligations on all these fronts, thereby rendering farmers helpless. They ended their lives, either by consuming pesticide or hanging, after being driven to utter despair for failing to repay these loans which they had taken at high interest rates from private lenders. All these deaths date from June 2019 onwards and so they fall within the purview of GO 43. Had the government taken the issue of implementation of GO 43 seriously, it would have ensured that three-member committees visit the families in a time-bound manner… Had they done that, it could have been established easily that the farmers committed suicide because of ‘agrarian reasons’.

“It can be said with certainty that they took their own lives because of losses in farm-related operations leading to an ever-spiralling cycle of indebtedness and consequently intense distress. What is of extreme disquiet is that not a single of these 18 farmers was issued the Crop Cultivator Rights Card (CCRC). In each of these cases, proof of tenancy could have been easily established had the administration been serious at all. Families of these farmers are in a state of acute deprivation with all of them being under regular and persistent pressure from money-lenders to pay up,” a statement from the HRF said.

The HRF stated that the total number of farmer suicides in the two Godavari districts since June 2019 is 87 (46 in East Godavari and 41 in West Godavari). Only seven families have been extended ex-gratia in East Godavari and 21 in West Godavari, it added.

“Administrative negligence on this scale defeats the very purpose of GO 43 and in a sense multiplies their tragedy. We call upon the state government to stop underplaying the extent of the crisis and to initiate concrete measures to alleviate the situation. As a first step, it must ensure that all cases of reported farmers’ suicides are enquired into at the earliest and justice done to the families,” Krishna said.

The HRF and the RSV have urged the government to amend GO 43 and insert a provision of one-time loan settlement in the financial package, so as to mitigate the debt burden of the families. “This will help in some measure in ensuring that they are not harassed by those they had borrowed money from,” said RSV state committee member B Kondal.