Not all are farmers suicides, says Telangana
NHRC has asked for a report from the state within two weeks
NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: The TRS government has been denying the reports of farmers’ suicides on the ground that a probe has been ordered by the government and it is yet to be completed.
The Opposition parties in Telangana have alleged that nearly 200 farmers have committed suicide in the state as the TRS government failed to come to their rescue.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had announced in a recent press conference: “It’s wrong to say that hundreds of farmers have committed suicide in Telangana due to failure of crops.
Preliminary reports received from the districts point out that there are only few such incidents. We have asked the chief secretary to inquire into these cases and submit a report at the earliest, based on which compensation will be offered up to Rs 1.5 lakh each. The report is yet to come. We don’t have the actual figures now.”
Chief Secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma has directed all district collectors to inquire into the suicide cases by involving staff from the revenue and the police departments.
He has asked them to ensure that the staff visit all the affected families and get information from them over the reasons that led to suicides by farmers.
“The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has observed that the contents of the press report, if true, raise a serious issue of violation of human rights of the farmers.
Accordingly, it has issued a notice to the chief secretary, government of Telangana calling for a report in the matter within two weeks,” a spokesman of the Commission said.
Though the TRS government had promised the crop loan waiver scheme, it has only paid 25 per cent of the total Rs 17,000 crore arrears so far, besides paying Rs 400 crore input subsidy that had been pending for three years.
However, there are complaints that the farmers are yet to receive fresh loans as the banks are refusing loans on grounds that they were not paid the total arrears by the government.
“Opposition parties are trying to make it seem that all the suicides are that of farmers to malign the TRS government.
“There is no truth in this. We have inquired with local officials, who said that not all deaths were farmer suicides. It’s also wrong to say that the banks are not issuing fresh loans due to loan arrears.
We have records to prove that the banks have sanctioned fresh loans of nearly Rs 8,000 crore so far,” said Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, the minister for agriculture.