Nagpur: Tackling the issue of farmers’ suicide and consequent problems that accentuate distress in affected households require a lot of sensitivity in handling. A helpline for farmers is proving to be their lifeline in Wardha district thanks to a proactive district administration and a dedicated NGO facilitating it. The pilot project has yielded encouraging results and may be replicated in other distressed districts of Vidarbha.
‘Samvad’, the helpline with toll free number 1800-2332383, has come to the rescue of more than 600 farmers and widows from suicide affected families since its launch in June. “ We get 15 to 20 calls a day mainly from hapless farmers about delay in getting crop loans, non-cooperation of bank officials, apathy or corruption by government staff. I am happy that 90% of these cases have been solved within short time,” Wardha district collector Shailesh Nawal told TOI.
Nawal and his staff assiduously follow every call that is recorded. Each call gets a token number for tracking and is forwarded to department or official concerned. “For instance, if a farmers calls to complain that the compensation for pink bollworm attack has been adjusted against his crop loan by the bank, the bank is contacted by the collectorate staff and the matter is resolved,” said Suvarna Damle of Prakriti, a NGO member-organization of MAKAAM which pushed the helpline project.
Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAAM) is a national forum protecting interests of women farmers and has presence in 20 states. In February, MAKAAM along with State Commission for Women held two consultations here on the problems of farm suicide affected households. Divisional commissioner Anoop Kumar was inspired by the Adilabad collector Divya Devrajan who gave a presentation on Kisan Mitra Helpline that had net with success in Vikarabad district of Telangana.
Nawal took the initiative and Samvad got going in June. “We are keeping a strict tab on calls. We will observe the situation for couple of months for better results,” he said.
For example, a farm widow Sheela Choudhary of a Hinganghat village found that banks were refusing her crop loan and the 7/12 extract was in the name of her deceased husband. The matter was addressed with the Patwari giving a certificate. Similarly, Indubai Uke of Junona in Selu tehsil was unable to get her compensation cheque from tehsil office for nearly a year but a phone call resolved the problem.
Buoyed by the good results of Wardha pilot project, plans are afoot to replicate it in Yavatmal, Akola and Amravati and discussions for that has begun with Amravati divisional commissioner Piyush Singh. “The resources and manpower for running the helpline comes from the district administration. We just help in reaching out to the target audience through posters and awareness campaigns so that more people, especially women use it when they are bogged down by problems,” explained Damle.
