Debt

Spectrum

Sunday, March 16, 2008

No exit Farmers in Malwa have little to celebrate as they still have to pay back loans to arhtiyas, reports S.P Sharma from Bathinda Women whose menfolk committed suicide because of debt in Walianwali, Bathinda. Photo by Kulbir Beera The Prime Minister's package covers only the loans taken from commercial banks and cooperative institutions. With the highest number of farmers of the Malwa region in Punjab reeling under debt, the area has hit headlines because of the high incidence of suicide. Nearly 700 small farmers and agricultural labourers have reportedly committed suicide in Bathinda, one of the district of the seven hard-core cotton-growing districts of the state. Victims of the farmers suicides have warned that they would intensify their agitation in case the state government failed to help them out of the debt. A group of widows, whose menfolk had committed suicide, as they were not in a position to repay the debt to private moneylenders, were highly critical of the successive governments that made "hollow" promises of pulling them out of debt. Many of them have lost their valuable agricultural lands to the moneylenders with whom these were mortgaged in lieu of a paltry amount. Paramjeet Kaur in the Wallianwali village said that her husband Surjeet Singh committed suicide five years ago, as he was unable to repay to the arhtiya the loan that had swelled to Rs 7 lakh. Karamjeet Kaur sobbed that her husband Jagrup Singh ended his life as the moneylender whom he was not in a position to repay Rs 2.50 lakh "harassed" him. Jagrup Singh was a farm labourer. Dilip Kaur has been left alone as her husband Sukhdev Singh and two sons Surjeet Singh and Manga Singh committed suicide. They used to take on contract farms for which they raised loan from moneylenders. An elderly Kaka Singh of the Malwala village in Sangat block, said that his son, Binder Singh (29), and daughter-in-law, Karamjeet Kaur, were pushed to suicide as a loan of Rs.50,000 stood against him. Binder was a farm labourer. Harbans Singh in the Kot-Fatta village cried that the moneylender from whom he took Rs 4,000 has occupied his entire landholding of two kanals. Deputy commissioner Rahul Tiwari said that he had received about 700 applications for relief from victims of suicide related incidents in the district and a committee was examining these claims. It is worth mentioning that coming across such incidents was unending in the Malwa belt in the south-west of Punjab where according to an official study around 93.5 per cent farmers were under the debt. Another study pointed out that there was a high incidence of suicides among poor peasants and agricultural labourers in all the three regions of the state, Majha, Doaba and Malwa, but it was higher in the three districts of Sangrur, Mansa and Bathinda in Malwa. Repeated pest attacks have financially broken the back of the cotton-growing farmers in Malwa as they had to undertake several rounds of spray of costly pesticides. A survey conducted by some official agencies has indicated that the cotton yield in Punjab is expected to fall from 749 kg to 598 kg per hectare. Punjab is the only state in the country where the average cotton production has declined by 20 per cent, whereas in other states the yield has increased. This was despite the increase in cotton growing area to 6.48 lakh hectares from the earlier 5.9-lakh hectares. Some farmers have diversified to cultivation of green chillies. A study jointly conducted by the Punjab State Farmers Commission and the Punjab Agriculture University has pointed out that the main reason for indebtedness as perceived by the farmers was the low price of farm produce and high cost of inputs. Complicated and time-consuming procedures of taking loans from banks forced them to avail loan from moneylenders. According to the study, "the Punjab peasant is born in debt, lives in debt and dies in debt".