New Delhi: The governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mahrashtra and Kerala will meet in Hyderabad on Monday to discuss a financial package to prevent farmer suicides.
The chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and the agriculture ministers of Kerala and Karnataka will discuss how they can help each other to prevent suicides.
Farmers will be given institutional credit, insurance and financial aid as part of the package, which is expected to be ready by May. The cooperative credit system will be revived, loans rescheduled for six to nine years and there will be no compounding of interest.
As many as 75 lakh farmers in 30 districts spread across the four states will get an insurance cover of Rs 1,565 crore. These include six districts from Maharashtra, six from Karnataka, three of Kerala and 15 districts of Andhra Pradesh.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the package would be ready for implementation in May. He will constitute a multi-disciplinary team to ensure effective implementation.
The meeting was called after the disturbing data on farmer suicides was made official on Monday. Nearly 97 lakh farmers have been ruined because of crop failure relief and huge loans.
- · Maharashtra: Cotton, onion and orange farmers have suffered huge loses. Over 980 farmers committed suicide between 2001 and 2006.
- · Karnataka: 5,900 farmers have committed suicide between 2001 and 2002.
- · Andhra Pradesh: 1,835 farmers committed suicide between 2001 and 2005.
- · Kerala: 201 suicides between 2001 and 2005.
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