It seems that there is no let-up in occurrence of farmers’ suicide in the State as another peasant in Bargarh district committed suicide by consuming poison on Wednesday, a day after he torched pest-affected crops on his land at Kalapani village.
The deceased farmer Brunda Sahu went to his paddy field and took poison there early in the morning. Though villagers rushed him to the Bargarh District Headquarters Hospital in a critical condition, he died there after an hour.
Sahu was under severe stress after failing to control pest attack on his maize crops. He had set standing crops on fire on Tuesday to prevent further attack of pest.
Fellow farmers have alleged that the pesticide supplied to them by the Government was of substandard quality unfit to kill ‘Chakada’ (brown plant hoppers) insects.
Kalapani villagers blocked the NH-53 keeping Brunda’s body on the road and demanding adequate compensation to kin of deceased.
With the death of Brunda Sahu, Bargarh district witnessed third farmer suicide in a span of seven days.
Meanwhile, torching of damaged paddy crops spread to the State’s other western districts of Jharsuguda and Sambalpur.
Some Jharsuguda farmers torched pest-affected paddy fields at Ayenlapada under lakhanpur block in the district.
Soon after the farmer suicide report was received on Wednesday morning, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister convened a high-level meeting with the Chief Secretary, the Development Commissioner and the Agriculture Secretary.
A three-member technical team was deputed to Bargarh district being asked to submit a report within 48 hours.
In another development, the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has asked the Bargarh district Collector and the Revenue and Agriculture Secretaries to submit reports of farmers’ suicide in three days. The OHRC served the notice based on a petition submitted by Samajwadi Party State president Rabi Behera.
Two days back, Behara had urged the OHRC for farm loan waiver and adequate compensation to the kin of the farmers who committed suicide.New York terror attack kills 8, injures 11 (S Rajagopalan)