1 lakh farmers ended life, debt major factor: Pawar

Finding no other alternative, farmers go to moneylenders who charge 25-40 per cent interest. Pawar is working on a package to provide relief to the farmers, especially in Maharashtra, Karanataka and Tamil Nadu where 90 per cent of the suicides was reported.

The package has been sent to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Finance Ministry, the details of which would be made public soon, he said. Some of the broad areas it would address:

• Separate category of loans for infrastructure and consumption: Crop loan is meant for infrastructure like tractors and implements. The Land Development Banks, set up for helping farmers with infrastructure are defunct now. Farmers also use money meant for crops to meet other requirements like medicines or marriage of daughters. ‘‘There will be a separate provision for consumption loans,’’ said Pawar.

• Providing alternate livelihood: Single-crop pattern is found in most of the affected districts and in case the crop fails, farmers have no other means of augmenting income. ‘‘Incentives will be provided to them to diversify into dairy and poultry,’’ he said.

• Improving irrigation: ‘‘Irrigation network being particularly poor, it will be a thrust area,’’ said Pawar. There is as little as 0.25 per cent for irrigation in the budget and the worst-affected districts have negligible irrigation facilities.

However, the main area of concern is credit. Little has been done to make credit available to farmers. So far, nearly 5,60,000 Kisan Credit Cards have been introduced and Rs 57,000 crore has been disbursed to farmers.

Rajya Sabha Members who spoke earlier pointed out that the credit infrastructure had collapsed.

Pawar admitted that there was complete failure of cooperative societies in the villages. Only 27 per cent loans had been disbursed through cooperatives in the last one year, as compared to 62 per cent by commercial and regional banks.

There is a proposal to revive the cooperatives for which the government will have to meet a deficit of Rs 14,000 crore. The Centre has, in principle, agreed to foot Rs 12,000 crore of this. The states have to do the rest. ‘‘States have agreed and talks are on with RBI and NABARD,’’ said Pawar.

There were serious concerns raised by members cutting across party lines. Sharad Joshi, founder of the Shetakri Sangathana called the suicides a ‘‘gangrene due to wounds inflicted by the government over the years’’. Kalraj Mishra of the BJP elaborated on the debt burden of the farmers. Economist Arjun Sengupta also said that ‘‘the fact of distress cannot be denied’’.