The State Government on Wednesday said it has no plan to conduct any special probe into deaths of farmers even as it admitted to have received reports of 122 farmer suicide cases from across the State.
“The Government has no plan to conduct investigation into farmer suicide cases by any specialised committee,” Agriculture Minister Pradeep Kumar Maharathy said in the Assembly while replying to a question. Rejecting Opposition’s allegation that the farmers in large numbers committed suicide due to crop loss and debt burden, Maharathy said the farmer suicide incidents have no link to agricultural crisis due to drought.
Stating that the Collectors and SPs of different districts have already investigated into the causes of farmer suicide incidents, the Minister said, “The probe revealed that the suicides were mostly due to personal, domestic, health related and other reasons, but not due to crop loss or debt burden.”
The Minister said the State Government has already announced a package for the drought-hit farmers. “Waiver of water cess, halt to loan collection and paddy procurement from sharecroppers are some of the provisions of the Government's drought package,” Maharathy said.
The Agriculture Minister, however, said that there have been 33 per cent or above crop loss in 215 blocks of 26 districts due to scanty and erratic rainfall during this monsoon.
“The State Government has made elaborate plans for Rabi crop to overcome drought crisis,” the Minister asserted.
Earlier, both the Opposition parties Congress and BJP had demanded judicial probe into the causes of large scale farmer suicide cases in the State.