Over 7,000 farmers have died by suicide in the last seven years in Telangana
Hyderabad:
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao last month said his government would give Rs 3 lakh to the families of 750 farmers killed in protest against the (now defunct) agricultural laws.
The grand gesture by KCR, as the Chief Minister is known, was widely seen as a sign of building a national political profile ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
However, the families of thousands of farmers who died by suicide in their own state are left without compensation. Being forced to get no help, they have come out on the streets. It was after three months that NDTV showed that even those whose payments were sanctioned were not paid.
Budget constraints were cited as minister KT Rama Rao promised to expedite payments.
For the hundreds of widows who pleaded for compensation for them, little has changed since then.
Manjula told NDTV, “I have approached the revenue officials, but they said, ‘We can’t help you because the land is not in her name’. She (her husband) will not get compensation or insurance.”
While she was speaking, her three-year-old son Pranay sat on her lap. It was his birthday.
PadmaMotherK’s husband committed suicide in 2018 due to a debt of Rs 6 lakh from accumulated agricultural loans. Their 24-year-old son inherited the debt and he too committed suicide while struggling to pay them off. PadmaMother Still no help.
“How should I repay the loan of Rs 6 lakh? My elder son died and my husband died. How do I survive? I have made many rounds… They say ‘go here, go there’ and finally Say there’s no budget,” he cried.
Ryuthu Swarajya Vedika, a grassroots organization working with farmers in the state, has listed 7,000 people who died by suicide in Telangana in the last seven years.
Only 1,600 families have been given compensation. The total amount disbursed is just Rs 6 lakh.
Last month, KCR had slammed the Center saying “anti-farmer, anti-poor, anti-middle class“And attacking him for refusing to buy boiled rice from farmers of Telangana.
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