‘TRS responsible for farm crisis’

January 04, 2017 12:26 am | Updated 08:06 am IST - HYDERABAD:

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday said the latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) had exposed the failure of Telangana Rashtra Samithi Government in preventing farmers’ suicides in the State, while also proving that it was responsible for the agrarian crisis in the State.

“For the second consecutive year, the NCRB has placed Telangana in second position in the country in suicides of those in the farm sector. This clearly shows that the State Government tried to downplay farmers’ suicides,” Mr. Reddy said.

Quoting statistics from Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2015, that was released by the NCRB on Monday, he said as many as 1,400 farmers, including 42 agricultural workers in Telangana, committed suicide in the year 2015. The figure was 1,347 (including 449 agricultural workers) in 2014 and there was a 33 per cent increase in number of farmers/cultivators who committed suicide, he said.

Mr. Reddy said that of 1,358 farmers, as many as 632 or 46.5 per cent committed suicide due to ‘Bankruptcy or Indebtedness’. Telangana is also on top in highest number of female farmers/cultivators suicides accounting for 34.7 per cent of total cases in the country.

Debt-ridden farmers who voted for TRS in last elections expecting complete waiver of their crop loans, lost their hopes after TRS Government split the loan waiver amount into several instalments. On behalf of farmers, the Congress made repeated appeals to the State Government seeking total clearance of crop loan waiver dues. However, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao ignored our appeals and allowed the situation to deteriorate further.

The TPCC chief said the causes that drove farmers of Telangana to suicides exposed the tall and hollow claims of TRS Government on development. While ‘Bankruptcy or Indebtedness’ drove 384 farmers to suicide, 395 others took their lives due to other farming-related issues which includes reasons like failure of crop due to natural calamities.

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