Alarmed by the recent incidences of farmers committing suicide due to mounting debt and limited income, the Punjab Government has decided to help the State’s farmers flourish with the constitution of a committee to formulate a comprehensive policy on the issue.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday gave his nod to constitute the committee to be headed by Punjab State Farmers’ Commission chairman Dr GS Kalkat.
Besides, the Committee will include Financial Commissioner Revenue, Financial Commissioner Development, Agriculture Secretary besides heads of the departments of Economics and Sociology from Punjab Agricultural University, ludhiana. Agriculture Commissioner would be its convener. Punjab, known as the country’s food bowl, has witnessed 10 debt-ridden farmers’ committing suicide in the past 40 days.
The previous surveys also show that three farmers in the State kill selves every two days owing to high debt burden. The State Government had earlier made a policy, which envisaged giving a lump sum amount of Rs two lakh to the next of the kin of the farmers who had committed suicides due to economic stress arising out of indebtedness.
Spokesperson said that the State Government had conducted detailed surveys through three state universities — Chandigarh’s Panjab University, Patiala’s Punjabi University and Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University for the period from 2001-2011 — which identified about 4,500 farmers and farm labourers who committed suicides due to indebtedness and accordingly released the amount to the eligible families.
The varsities, on the other hand, actually identified about 6,900 families whose members committed suicide between 2,000 and 2011 — out of which, the State Government excluded 2,200 families citing suicides due to reasons other than farm debt, leaving 4,500 families.
Besides, the State has only recently provided Rs 64 crore to the families of suicide victims. Further, a Committee under the chairmanship of respective Deputy Commissioners at district level has been formulated to identify and recommend such cases to the State Government for releasing the requisite funds.
However, it was felt that there was a need for preparing a comprehensive policy on such suicides, with a view not only to compensate the aggrieved families but also prevent occurrence of such unfortunate incidents, he said.
Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan) had provided a list of debt-ridden farm families listing out more than 8,500 suicides in only about 600 villages spanning over eight districts in the past 15 years.
The Union also demanded an “exhaustive” survey from 2,000 to till date claiming that as per their estimates, more than 30,000 farmer and labourers have committed suicide in past 14 years in the State.