Kin of farmers who died by suicide await compensation from the govt

HYDERABAD: The families of hundreds of farmers who died by suicide said they had been denied ex gratia compensation under Government Order 194, despite the police certifying in the investigation reports that the suicides were due to debt.

Rythu Swarajya Vedika, a farmers’ forum, conducted a survey of cases of the final reports from the police for about 100 farmers who died by suicide and found that the bereaved families were eligible to receive ex gratia under GO 194.

It was after the forum filed a public interest litigation (PIL) and the High Court intervened that 24 families received ex gratia from the government, but the rest of the applications are pending.

The government put on hold the implementation of GO 194 after it introduced Rythu Beema in 2018 which caters only to farmers whose ownership of land is established in revenue records. Tenants are out of consideration and also land owners are not considered if ownership is in the name of their kin.

As per the statistics provided by the forum, since the formation of Telangana state in 2014, about 7,000 famers had committed suicide owing to debts, but only the families of ab ut 1,600 of them had received the ex gratia amount.

Kondala Reddy B., committee member of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, told Deccan Chronicle: “In most of the cases, the three-member committee which conducts the preliminary enquiry had never visited the families for verification and documentation”.

The inquiry is conducted at two levels – mandal level committee which includes the local sub-inspector, tahsildar and the agriculture officer, and regional level committee which has revenue divisional officer, deputy superintendent of police and assistant director of agriculture.

Under GO 194, the family of the farmer, whether owner or tenant, receives ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh and a one-time settlement amount of Rs 1 lakh, which clears the debt of the famers, which is not the case with Rythu Beema, which is an insurance policy.

The forum said that it has been a long struggle for the bereaved families, who had lost a family member and the struggle still continued as the government was not taking measures to initiate the compensation process.