Maharashtra relief and rehabilitation Minister Vijay Wadettiwar informed the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in a written reply during the question hour at the assembly that a total of 1078 farmers had committed suicide in Maharashtra from June to October.
Further, the Minister stated that 491 of those cases were considered eligible by the respective district level committees for receiving the benefit of the state government’s Mahatma Jyotirao Phule loan waiver scheme. These farmers would receive financial assistance under the loan waiver scheme, according to Vijay Wadettiwar.
Wadettiwar added that farmers committed suicides due to high debt burden and inability to repay loans, damage of crops caused due to natural calamities and soil infertility, and also due to personal and family reasons. The minister said that the govt is serious about the issue, and suggested that compensation paid to families of deceased farmers should be increased from the current Rs 1 lakh to Rs 4 lakh. “In my view, farmer suicides should be included as ‘disaster’ so that the heirs of the deceased farmers can be given aid of Rs 4,00,000. I shall bring up this proposal before the state cabinet,” said Wadettiwar.
A recent NCRB report had also stated that the majority of the suicide victims during the year 2020 were reported from Maharashtra. However, in spite of the rising number of suicides being reported from the state where Congress is in power in alliance with Shiv Sena and NCP, Senior Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi is fighting tooth and nail for the compensation of alleged 750 farmers who have died during the farmer protests in and around Delhi. Various opposition leaders have claimed that around 700 to 750 leaders have died during the protests. In an interview given to Times Now, Rahul Gandhi had given a list of 700 people who have allegedly died during the incident.
Earlier this month, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Parliament that there was no record of the exact number of farmers who had died during the farmers protests and hence there was no possiblity of giving compensation to the families. Minister said, “The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare has no record in the matter and hence the question does not arise,”.
Notably, Rahul Gandhi had also slammed the Narendra-Modi led government for having no records of farmers death during the protests. Further, Rahul Gandhi also claimed that the Congress party had a list of 100 farmers from outside Punjab who died during the protests another list of 200 farmers was being prepared on the basis of public records.