Nagpur: Even as the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown aggravated troubles for the common man, suicides by farmers have actually reduced in this period in Nagpur district.
During the lockdown from March till date, only 12 farmers have ended their lives, as per the RTI reply by the district collector’s office. The reply filed by collectorate’s public information officer Vivek Gawande to activist Abhay Kolarkar’s queries informed that 20 farmers have committed suicides this year from January 1 to October 31.
Last year, about 56 of them had ended their lives due to problems like continuous losses due to nature’s vagaries and mounting debts. In 2018, the number was 36.
According to Kolarkar, government apathy can be gauged from the fact that out of 20 deaths, it has handed over compensation to only two of the families till October 31. While 15 proposals are pending for enquiry, three were found ineligible to get the compensation.
If data of the last 15 years is taken into account in six districts of Nagpur division, over 4,000 farmers have ended their lives as per government records. The farm activists blamed flawed policies of the government for continuous suicides by farmers. They said no concrete steps were taken to address the plight and perennial problems faced by them like crop failure over the years.