Growing pains

Modi’s past two terms have been spent in creating big slogans for farmers, but there has been no action

- VIJAY JAWANDHIA

Farmer suicides began getting attention in the late 1990s, in the cotton belt of united Andhra Pradesh. Cotton prices nosedived globally, and the farmers there did not have a cotton monopoly procurement scheme like we in Maharashtra had. Our suicides, which continue even today, started around 2003, when the state government ended that scheme, which used to pay farmers ₹500 to ₹600 bonus, per quintal, above the MSP (minimum support price). With the scheme being revoked, our farmers became exposed to free market price trends and stopped getting the assured sum of money from the government.

Suicides kept increasing every year and, in 2008, the government led by prime minister Manmohan Singh began thinking about the issue seriously. It was Singh who had introduced the free market economy in 1991, which led to the widening of the gap between the rural and urban economy. With the fifth pay commission, the income of one class rose rapidly and people started buying fridges, microwaves and scooters at no interest.