Ten more debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in Vidarbha over the last three days, a non-governmental organisation active in the region and government officials said on Wednesday.
Six of them, including a woman, belong to Yavatmal district, Kishore Tiwari, President of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti said in a statement. The NGO said all the ten farmers were under heavy debt. Other suicides were reported from Nagpur, Akola and Washim districts.
Confirming the farmer suicides in Yavatmal, District Collector Sanjay Deshmukh said he was gathering more information from the officials concerned. "We shall pay ex-gratia to the next of kin of the deceased as per the established norms," he added.
Tiwari said more than 40,000 farmers have killed themselves in Maharashtra since 1998 due to reasons like crop failure and financial burden. Majority of them were from dry land regions of Vidarbha and Marathawada. This year, more then 20,000 villages have been declared drought-hit by the state government.
Despair and apathy of the administration are leading to suicides by farmers, Tiwari alleged. The drought-hit villages are facing severe shortage of water, food, fodder and employment but the administration has not started any relief work, resulting in the migration of thousands of farmers.
