Compensation lured farmers to suicide

bangalore: most of the 147 farmers' suicides in karnataka __ eligible for government compensation __ have not been due to agricultural losses, but to personal reasons or lack of money to repay private loans. the veeresh committee on farmers' suicides, set up in august 2000, has uncovered this startling fact which forms part of its report to be submitted to the government in january.the committee was set up after chief minister s.m. krishna told the assembly that government compensation had become an ``incentive'' for farmers to commit suicide. the compensation given to the family of a farmer who has committed suicide is rs 1 lakh. the committee has been directed ``to scientifically analyse the cause of the farmers' deaths and outline the steps to be taken to prevent it''. with a psychologist and sociologist on board, the committee sent out 25,000 questionnaires containing 165 questions covering 21 subjects on a random survey of farmers. the questions were very in-depth, containing details of the farmer's crop, acreage, loans, lifestyle, food habits, sexual problems, religious beliefs, liquor addictions, gambling, extra-marital affairs, domestic atmosphere, political and organisational affinity. ``the details cover 10 years, as we wanted to study changes in their professional and personal lives. about 65 per cent of the farmers who committed suicide were addicted to liquor and about 55 per cent had extra-marital affairs which had wrecked their families,'' sources told the times of india on sunday. according to the findings, 65 per cent of the farmers killed themselves as they could not pay back private loans with enormous interest rates, as they used the money for ``non-agricultural'' purposes. ``crop losses or low prices for their produce have rarely been the cause for these suicides,'' sources contended. they pointed out that the drought of 1998-99 and 1999-2000 were not as harsh as those of 1967-68 and 1985-88. ``so, we examined whether the issue was their lifestyle or religious beliefs. a deeply religious person does not commit suicide, as is found in islamic countries. our finding is that of late, religious faith is not as deep as it was earlier,'' they said.