T. N Prakash Kammaradi, Chairman, Karnataka Agriculture Price Commission visited families of farmers driven to suicides in some villages near Bidar on Thursday.
He met members of the Lakha family of Islampur village whose breadwinner Kashinath Siddappa committed suicide a year ago. He had taken loans of around Rs 1.7 lakh. Only around Rs 20,000 was from the primary agriculture cooperative society in the village. The rest were hand loans from moneylenders and agriculture commission agents. He could not pay them on time. He felt guilty for being a defaulter and killed himself, his wife Kamalamma, told the visitor. She said that the money was used for the marriage of their daughter.
Her son Gundappa, left school half way and is working in a garage. She complained that the government was yet to pay her compensation. She has not got any other benefits from the government like loan waiver or widow’s pension, she said.
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Dr Kammaradi assured he would tell the concerned officials about her condition.
He told presspersons who accompanied him that there was a pattern in farmers suicides.
He said, “Most farmers seem to commit suicide due to fall in prices, debt or calamities like drought or floods. The short-term solutions are to support them financially, counseling them and ensuring that the welfare measures of the state reach them. The long term measures would be ensuring remunerative prices and ensuring better prediction of weather phenomenon’’.
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Later, he held a discussion with officials of various departments.
Shivakumar Sheelavant, Additional Deputy commissioner, G. T Putra, Joint Director of Agriculture, and others were present. Eom