Punjab farmers driven to suicide

[Guest mehtab]

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory...traits&id=48476

Punjab farmers driven to suicide

Swati Maheshwari

Thursday, February 5, 2004 (Fatehgarh Sahib):

Farmers in Punjab with small land holdings are being forced into the arms of loan sharks as there are few officially sanctioned credit schemes.

But with exorbitant interest rates, they are being forced into debt and some of them are even choosing death.

Mehar Singh, a farmer with a four-acre plot in Anandpur village in the district of Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab has to repay a debt of nearly Rs 4 lakh that he took to build a small house for himself and to lay underground pipes in his farm.

Little choice

With income from his crops barely enough to sustain him and his family, he's being forced to sell his land as he has little choice.

"I 'm not able to sleep thinking of how I'll repay the loan. I'm always so worried that at times I think I should eat something and die," said Mehar Singh.

With cost of inputs like fertilizers, pesticides and electricity going up and no matching increase in the sale price of crops agriculture is no longer lucrative for farmers with a landholding of less than 5 acres.

Suicides on the rise

There has been a sharp increase in suicides among small farmers in Punjab in the last ten years, one of the main reasons being their inability to pay the debt they had incurred.

Most of the small farmers en

d up going to village moneylenders to borrow money with exorbitant rates of interest varying between 24-36 per cent per year.

"We have to make innumerable trips to the banks. There are too many formalities and it takes much longer. We usually need the money for fertilizers or something else for which we can't wait. The money lender gives it to us in an hour," said Sher Singh, a farmer.

Perennial indebtedness

A study shows that nearly 80 per cent of the small farmers of Punjab are indebted to moneylenders.

"Bribes depend on the amount of loan you are taking and if you know someone at the top you don't have to pay bribes," said Angrez Singh, another farmer.

While the government has announced schemes to make credit easily accessible to farmers, these schemes are largely being greeted with scepticism.

Farmers are not sure whether benefits like the Kisan credit card will actually reach the grassroot level or whether they will remain limited to the big farmers.

[mann_kaum_layee_qurbaan]

punjab a land of vibrant colors, love, rich culture, religion, and beauty has been just the opposite ever since indian independence. All we have witnessed is death, death of a religion, of a culture, of a language. The only color is red, the color of blood. The land of Gurus,Pirs, and fakirs has been turned into a wasteland. Drugs, violence, and death. How did this ever happen? How did we let this happen? Our own people killed the so called "terrorists" the very people who fought to preserve the vibrant colors, love, rich culture, religion, and beauty. They were called foolish and terrorists, well now we are witnessing the results of our kaum's actions. Gulami(slavery) is never cured by compromising. We have compromised our freedom by killing off the kharkoo singhs and now we are the victims of the evils those precious souls were fighting. As the great sant sipahi had said, "eh gulami saade gal wich hai, eh kiwe launi?" "This chain of slavery is around our necks, how are we going to get rid of it?" DO YOU KNOW?

[Khalsa4ever]

Most of the small farmers end up going to village moneylenders to borrow money with exorbitant rates of interest varying between 24-36 per cent per year.

"We have to make innumerable trips to the banks. There are too many formalities and it takes much longer. We usually need the money for fertilizers or something else for which we can't wait. The money lender gives it to us in an hour," said Sher Singh, a farmer.

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

I don't mean to sound without sympathy... but you don't go to a money shark if you can get the money from a bank for lower interest.... its like throwing away money!

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

[JSingh]

Khalsa4ever Ji, the bank takes tooooo long to give the money and there are tooooo many formalities that the bank makes farmers go through, and the farmers have to bribe the employees to get money from the bank, and so many other things. It is not easy to get loan from the bank if you don't know anyone inside.