Officials in the western Indian state of Maharashtra say nine farmers have committed suicide over the past week.
Reports said the farmers from the Vidarbha region killed themselves because they could not repay debts.
Farm activists say despite recent government aid packages, over 200 farmers have committed suicide in the region since January.
At least 10,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in India each year over the last decade.
Drought, a fall in crop prices and an increase in the cost of cultivation are cited as reasons for the farmers' plight.
Many farmers have been forced to take out loans to buy necessary supplies, but these have left them heavily in debt.
Some turn to moneylenders, who charge much higher rates of interest.
The government recently announced a $15bn waiver of farmer loans.
But correspondents say the waiver may not help a large number of farmers who have taken loans from private lenders.
1 comment:
What about those farmers who have paid up their loans honestly?
While everyone has a great sympathy for the impoverished poor drought torn farmers, isn’t it that our finance minister is making those farmers who paid their loans on-time to look like big idiots? Isn’t the finance minister just encouraging the financial indiscipline of greatest order? Wouldn’t the same impoverished farmers, who will now be taking fresh new loans, expect the same relief when they default on their new loans?
Moreover, what is the guarantee that the really needy farmer will get its loan waived off and the clergy of Indian bureaucracy and the clerics won’t eat up all the loan waivers by promoting their chosen beneficiaries?
The better and real way to help out farmers is to provide agriculture a private business sector status and let the farmers and the farmers organisations to decide the price for farmer’s hard work and its product.
Subsidies are actualy like a two-ay swords which will keep cutting heads on both sides.
The sucking socialistic statism of Indian politics and economy is burdening the poor more than anything else can, the only solution for such gimmicks is striving for free-market economy with no hold of politics on economy.
Laissez-faire principle alone can provide a relief for the hard workers.
India needs to forget the bufoonery of keynese and adapt the wisdom of Ludwig Von Mises and Rothbard.
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