By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, March 16, 2016: The Odisha government on Wednesday admitted that at least 174 farmers had committed suicide in the last Kharif season. The government, however, did not acknowledge crop loss and loan burden as the reasons behind the large-scale suicide cases.

In a written reply to the Odisha Legislative Assembly, agriculture minister Pradip Maharathy said illness, mental disturbance and family quarrel l were found during the probe as the principal factors behind the suicides.
The minister, however, admitted a lot of the farmers who ended their life had sustained crop loss.

In another development, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought a report from Odisha Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi over allegations of government inaction in cases of farmers’ suicide.

The Commission has sought the report based on a petition filed by RTI and human rights activist Pradip Pradhan and has directed Padhi to submit the report within four weeks.

In his petition, Mr Pradhan cited that “30 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in less than a month between November 21 and December 10 last in 12 districts of Odisha. But the State Government has been constantly denying the allegation of farmers’ suicide”.

“The reports of district collectors and SPs obtained through RTI pointed out various reasons like family problems, love matters and family disputes, etc, as reasons for farmers’ suicide. But during field visit of civil society organisations the precarious conditions of the families, mental trauma suffered by the family members, failure of crop due to less rainfall, tension to repay the loans borrowed from private moneylenders at exorbitant rates of interest, etc was experienced,” he added.