New Delhi: A farmer ends his life every 41 minutes in the country very few people are aware of this hard fact, said Kota Neelima, author of the Windows of Vidarbha which chronicles the life of 16 farmer’s widows.Â
A very enlightening panel discussion on ‘Plight of Indian Farmers’ was held in New Delhi today. The panel comprised of Industrialist Sanjay Dalmia, Journalist Gargi Parsai, author of the book Windows of Vidarbha Kota Neelima.
During panel discussion, Kota Neelima further said, “As many as 12,602 farmers had ended their lives in 2015. And in between 1995 and 2015, a period of 21 years, a total of 3,18,528 farmers have committed suicide!​Â
The panelists said that farmer suicides and government apathy are tightly linked to each other. Progressively governments have, in their quest of appeasing the city denizens and corporate India neglected those who till the land and fill our plates with food. Hard loan terms, shifty markets, and zero progress in the technology enhancement of the agricultural sector has rendered the farmer helpless. Even the proposed reserve price is too small a support to offer.
Sanjay Dalmia, a philanthropist and industrialist who hosted an event said after 70 years a government came which at least talk to increase minimum support price of farmers’ crops.Â
“The MSP of farmers’ crop have to be increased. Since three four decades farmers have been demanding it.”
He further said, “In my opinion, just like company fix price of their product, farmers’ should also have such leverage.”
