PM promises financial help to farmers

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said the Centre and Maharashtra government would evolve a package for farmers aimed at improving their financial conditions and reducing the debt burden.

"The Centre along with the state will try to find a solution to this problem. The remedy cannot be immediate, but the situation will certainly improve," said Dr Singh, who is touring Vidarbha region of the state to review the situation on the ground level in the wake of suicides by over 1,600 farmers in the last five years.

In his first of the series of meetings with families of farmers who have committed suicide in Amravati district, the prime minister acknowledged that debt was a big problem farmers faced and said that before he concluded his two-day tour of the region, he would try to provide some relief to them.

"An announcement can be made before I return," Dr Singh told the farmers.

The prime minister, who is on a two-day tour of Vidarbha, said the package was being planned for farmers in the region, which would aim at improving irrigation facilities and offer opportunities to earn alternate sources of income that would go along with their primary source of livelihood.

The interaction of the prime minister with farmers lasted for more than an hour.

Official sources said the prime minister is likely to make an annoucement of a package on Saturday afternoon at the end of his tour.

Earlier, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said lack of irrigation facilities was the biggest problem before single crop taker farmers and added that a special programme was needed to solve the problem.

He said the Democratic Front government had already announced a Rs 1,075 crore package for farmers in Vidarbha besides announcing interest waiver and holding programmes like mass marriages for the wards of affected farmers.

Deshmukh said the government had taken steps to ascertain the real cause behind the suicide of farmers and added that those issues would be redressed by the government.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Union Minister Prithviraj Chouhan, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Prabha Rau and Congress general secretary in-charge of affairs of Maharashtra Margaret Alva were present.