A faulty agricultural policy and Government’s anti-farmer attitude are responsible for rising farmer suicides in Ganjam district, alleged BJP here.
A delegation-cum- fact finding team of the party led by senior BJP leader Rama Chandra Panda visited Jayantipur village under Patrapur block in Chikiti Assembly constituency and met the family members of deceased farmer Haramb Badtiya, who committed suicide by consuming pesticide on Tuesday last.
The deceased farmer lost his entire crops due to drought and non availability of water and as such was under severe mental stress. He reportedly brought loan and spent his entire savings in agriculture with the hope to get good produce, but in vain. Baditya was not compensated either.
The BJP team found that the bereaved family members could not arrange the required money even for cremation of the body. The situation was so bad that the family did not have the money to bring the body of Badtiya from hospital. The body was brought from hospital and cremated out of the contributions made by the residents of Roula Street and later the local Panchayat paid assistance of Rs 2,000 under ‘Harischandra Yojana’ of the State Government.
Panda alleged that till date, none of the Government officials visited the deceased family which is an indicator of apathy towards the bereaved family. On the one hand, the State Government is not deliberately implementing the water policy of the Central Government, nor are the farmers provided agricultural loan from cooperative and other banks, he alleged.
The farmers of Jayantipur Panchayat are still not aware of various welfare and pro-farmer schemes of the Government. Neither the officials of the Agricultural Department have ever visited this village, nor any awareness programme conducted. Even hundreds of poor farmers were deprived of benefit under the Indira Awas Yojana.
Panda demanded immediate payment Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the bereaved family. Among others, district BJP president Kanhu Charan Pati, State BJP secretary Bibhuti Bhusan Jena, State executive member Saroj Sabat,
former BJP nominee for Chikiti Assembly Udayanath Pradhan, district vice president Rajesh Kumar Sahu, Balakrushna Samantara, Ballahav Mohanty, Uma Panigrahi, Narasingh Sethi and S Uma Sankar were present.