Five farmers have committed suicide in the past two days in Vidarbha region, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) said on Wednesday.
Five farmers — Dilip Rajurkar, Gangubai Ganpade and Vijay Panre (all from Yavatmal district), Hanuman Choudhary (Wardha), and Mahadeo Warne (Akola) — committed suicide in the past two days, NGO Vidarbha Jan Aandolan Samiti (VJAS) said in a release here.
The total number of farmers suicides in the region has reached 572 in 2010, VJAS president Kishore Tiwari said.
According to Mr Tiwari, Choudhary’s suicide was more shocking as he belonged to Waiphad village, where Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had declared a `3750-crore relief package for farmers in 2006, and Dr M.S. Swaminathan, head of the National Farmers’ Commission, had opened an agriculture centre to help farmers learn new technology and sustainable farming. In a letter to the Prime Minister, VJAS has given details of the sky rocketing cultivation cost highlighting the agrarian crisis in the area.