HD Kumaraswamy sheds tears for kin of dead farmers

Mysuru: Former chief minister and JD(S) state president H.D. Kumaraswamy visited almost all 32 households of farmers who committed suicide in the past two months in Mandya district on Monday.

He shed tears along with family members of deceased farmer Umesh at Karlakatte in Malavalli. Mr Kumaraswamy gave an ex-gratia of Rs 50,000 to the family members of each farmer who had committed suicide.

At Aagalahalli in Maddur taluk he gave ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh to the household of farmer Sannaboregowda. He plans to visit the households of over 200 farmers who have committed suicide in the entire state in the past two months, starting from Mysuru and Chamarajnagar next week.

Speaking to mediapersons Mr Kumaraswamy who became emotional said he is deeply hurt seeing the plight of the families. If the farmers had given some thought to the future of their kids, they would not have committed suicide. The anti-farmer policies of the government are responsible for this sad state of affairs, he alleged.

“The agriculture ministers of both the state and Central government  feel farmers have ended their lives for reasons other than the losses suffered in agriculture or the debt burden. This is not fair. They should come up with programmes to help farmers,” he said.

“The government should ask private money-lenders to give a year’s time to farmers to repay the loans. It should ensure that the sugar factories start crushing work at the earliest. Factories have cleared the arrears of hardly 50 per cent of  farmers. There has been a steep fall in silk cocoon prices which used to be Rs 300-400. Now it is Rs 70-200. If the state government fails to pay arrears to sugarcane farmers and support mulberry growers, we will take up a rigorous protest from Chamarajnagar to Bengaluru,” he warned. “We waived loans amounting to Rs 2,500 crore when in power. The state government has imposed a Rs 45,000 crore loan burden on people,” he said.