SANTRUK VILLAGE, BHARATPUR: At 45 degrees, Bharatpur’s Santruk village is boiling – a far cry from the hailstorms of last month which ate up over 80% crops in Rajasthan, placing the state alongside Telangana and Maharashtra, which regularly witnesses suicide by farmers.
In Santruk, unable to bear the burden of debt, 35-year-old farmer Titu Jat hanged himself on April 26. He was one of the 11 farmers who committed suicide in Rajasthan so far this year.
The compensation received was next to nothing, the farmers say. “A compensation of Rs. 6500 is a joke,” said Subedar Devi Singh, a local farmer. Titu owed more than Rs. 3 lakh to the banks and a few more lakhs to private moneylenders. Given the harvest, there was no question of paying back the amount, say his relatives. He expected to harvest 40 quintals of wheat. He got only four.
Now Titu’s family of nine – including his wife and two children — do not know wher their next meal will be coming from. Titu’s younger brother Jitin had been left immobile after an accident a few years ago, and Titu was the only breadwinner of the family.
“We may be forced to beg,” said their mother.
There has been no one from the government to listen to them. Not a single administration official has visited this village so far. The district magistrate was not available for comment.
The opposition Congress has demanded that the compensation be increased and the loans waived. Vishwender Singh, the local Congress legislator said the government “needs to wake up” to the plight of farmers.
The government which claims to have paid Rs. 700 crore as compensation so far, says it would be “overstating the case” to label all recent suicides a result of crop loss.
Around 80% of the families in Bharatpur are dependent on agriculture for survival. Not so long ago, it was even called the granary of Rajasthan. But the bad times, the farmers say, are just beginning.
