I was reading an article on Indian farmers in a magazine. “What corruption has damaged the condition of the Indian Farmers”. Their was a time when the Indian Farmers were buried in debts of the landlords and influential people of the villages. But the condition been worse now-a-days because of the Government System today.
Head Clerks, assistant clerks, Tehsildaar, Gram Mukhiya or Gram Pradhan, Lekhpaals everybody has become like a parasite and sucking the blood out of the farmers, until their strength to bear suffering broke. Many farmers commit suicide or become slave to these kind of the people. There was a incident reported that there was a farmer who want to buy some seeds and the fertilizers for the upcoming season of the farming. Since he has no money to buy the needs, someone suggested him to borrow the amount from the Government’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. He went there to apply for the loan.
As he arrived and apply for the loan the Manager of the Bank in his area told that he must bribe him to get pass the loan, as in that situation he agreed. To buy all things he wanted 35000 INR loan from the Bank. But the manager said he wants 7000 INR as bribe. After him the Head Clerk said he has also share of 5000 INR or they will not clear his loan. Being incapable he accepted, but after that Gram Pradhan also demanded he also has a share in this. Now what can he do. After loan amount money discharged from the bank they all took the share. Only 18000 INR left in his hand after giving all the three of them bribe.In that amount of the money he can buy the equipment, seeds and the fertilizers he needed. He tried to fight with the situation for a while but at last he lost the battle and committed suicide with his whole family including a small girl aged 10 years.
Who is the responsible one behind this Manager of the Bank, Head Clerk of the Bank or the Gram Pradhan? I guess the Government, because if the government has made the system transparent and helpful to the farmers then their should be no incidents like this. Alone in year 2011 the no of suicides committed by the farmer reached 15000, in year 2012 it rose to 17000. And now approximately 46-50 farmers (including female) committing suicide every day averaging 18000 per year.
This should be stopped, because our farmers also started giving up farming due to low yielding and the revenue. It’s not like that the crop is bad or the yielding is not proper but the whole system of the mediators between the customers and the farmers are the real problem. They buy from the farmers on very low rates and sell in the market to customers at very high rate. This cause financial damage to both the farmers and the customers. If these mediators removed then the farmers can go directly to the customers selling at the profitable rate to them and to the customers also. The government should take action on this at high priority as bad days are going on but those days are not so long when the worse times of the Agricultural India arrives.