As farmers' suicide toll mounts in Odisha, govt puts blame on family disputes and alcoholism

Fifty one and counting. Farmer suicide cases in Odisha, which began sometime in September, show no signs of abating in a hurry. Not a day passes without one or more farmers committing or attempting suicide. Three were reported on Monday and two more on Tuesday. Given the state of the crops – mainly paddy – there may be more cases in the days to come. But far from doing anything to arrest the spiraling suicide toll, the Naveen Patnaik government is busy repudiating allegations of suicide. It is attributing them to everything from the beaten-to-death ‘family dispute’ reason to the laughable claim of ‘excess of alcohol’. Sambalpur MP Nagendra Pradhan has reportedly earned the wrath of his party boss for going against the official party/government line and admitting that the suicides were indeed caused by crop loss. In a sign of the government’s gross apathy, neither the chief minister nor agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy has so far bothered to visit any of the families that have lost a member to find out if the death was caused by crop loss. [caption id=“attachment_2493732” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo. Image courtesy: PTI[/caption] True, the benevolent people’s government has announced a Rs 1, 000-crore special package for the distressed farmers, pushed to the end of their tether by deficient rainfall and mounting loan burdens. But the benefits of the package have not yet reached the farmers, who need it now. A total of 139 out of the 314 blocks in the state, spread over 21 districts, have been declared drought-affected and farmers in these areas would get compensation after an assessment of the extent of damage they have suffered. But the benefits of the package and the compensation will go to owners of the land and not the sharecroppers, who constitute the vast majority of those who have committed, or attempted suicide. Ask the government about it and what you get is the standard response perfected over the years for all such questions. “A committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the development commissioner. We will take necessary steps to ensure the rights of share croppers once the committee submits the report,” says Revenue Minister Bijayshree Routray. Even as the government is busy whitewashing what are clear cases of suicide, the two principal Opposition parties – Congress and BJP - are engaged in milking the issue for maximum political mileage. While appealing to the farmers not to take the ‘extreme step’, PCC President Prasad Harichandan announced on Tuesday that his party would gherao all block headquarters in the state on 6 November. After touring drought affected areas in Rayagada and Kandhamal districts, a BJP fact-finding team led by senior leader Bijay Mohapatra on Tuesday indulged in its customary government-bashing accusing it of sleeping as distressed farmers have started migrating to southern states in large numbers in search of job and to escape the money-lenders. Ironically, the women’s self help groups (SHGs), long touted as a game changer by the Naveen Patnaik government in bringing about a sea-change in the rural economy, have emerged as the new blood-sucking ‘money-lenders’ in the countryside. Along with micro finance companies, they have been the biggest reason for driving farmers into suicide. According to figures presented by the government in the assembly, there have been more than 3, 000 reports of farmers committing suicide in the state in the last 10 years. These alarming figures should have prompted a government to initiate well thought-out and lasting measures to curb such deaths in future. But unfortunately, the government’s response has been marked by ad-hocism and buck-passing. During his recent visit to Delhi, the chief minister met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and sought a special drought package worth Rs 3, 500 crore. If the package is not given or is given but falls short by a few hundred crores, the Naveen Patnaik government can be trusted to dust off its ‘central neglect’ long-play record. But amusingly, when asked for his comment on a central team that did visit some drought affected districts in the state at the behest of Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the voluble Agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy had remarked, “Whatever has to be done has to be done by the state government.”