A farmer from the Panchmahals district committed suicide by consuming pesticide after being worried about not being able to pay his debt due to crop failure following scanty rains. Police said that Balwantsinh Gohil, 45, a resident of Khadki village in Kalol taluka of the district, consumed poison and died while getting treatment at SG Hospital in Vadodara late Friday. He is survived by his wife and two sons. The elder son assisted him in farm activities and the younger one was a student at a local college. His sons said that Gohil was worried ever since the prospects of crop failure emerged due to scanty rainfall and hot weather. His maize crop, sown over half hectare land in his village, had grown up but had started wilting due to lack of water as no irrigation canal network runs in the region. Gohil, being a small landholding farmer, was not in a position to avail irrigation through motor pumps unlike large holding farmers in his village and nearby regions. He grew worrisome and was not able to sleep or eat properly due to the prospects of crop failure as monsoon rains failed when the crops needed them the most, his family members said. “He had taken debt from his acquaintances and relatives in the village to prepare the kharif crop and was expecting to pay debt after selling maize that we had sown. The crop was doing well until recently and had grown up. It needed water to survive but due to delay in rains, it started drying up. We have no provisions for irrigation. Worried, he drank pesticide to end his life. We first rushed him to the Kalol hospital and then took him to SSG Hospital in Vadodara. Doctors could not save him,” his elder son, Paresh Gohil, said.
