Farmers file police plaint against govt over suicides

Chandrapur: Chandrapur unit of Sukanu Samiti, a union of farmers, and Kisan Kranti on Friday jointly filed a criminal complaint at Ramnagar police station against the state government holding it responsible for farmers suicides in the state.

The samiti charged the government with deceiving farmers (Section 420) and abating them to commit suicide (Section 306).

Sources in police station confirmed that a complaint has been received from Sukanu Samiti. "No offence has been registered," said sources.

A delegation led by Pradeep alias Pappu Deshmukh stated that the government has adopted anti-farmer policies, which forced thousands of farmers in the state to commit suicide and termed all the suicides as murder (killings) by the government due to its wrong policies.

"The farmers burdened with the high loans demanded waiver but the government deceived them in the name of waiver scheme," the complaint stated.

The Samiti claimed that lakhs of farmers have failed to gain benefits of the waiver scheme due to its stringent norms and compulsion of filing online application. "As per records, there are over 89 lakh farmers in the state have bank accounts. Of them, only 58 lakh farmers were able to file application for loan waiver. Out of 58 lakh farmers, only those fit into strict criterion will benefit from the waiver scheme," the Samiti said in the written complaint.

The Samiti also raised demands like complete loan waiver, appropriate rates for farm produce, implementation of Swaminathan commission recommendations, pension of Rs3,000 to farmers crossing the age of 55 years etc.