‘Create safety net for farmers’

The Bombay high court on Friday asked the state and central governments to consider creating an insurance safety net for farmers to curb suicides in rural Maharashtra.

Delivering the judgment in a PIL on the rising number of farmers’ suicides, Chief Justice Khistij Vyas and Justice DY Chandrachud observed, “The extent to which civil society protects basic human freedom has been regarded as an index of development.”

Noting that civil and political rights can only flourish in a society which is “free of undeserved want and poverty”, the judges said, “Suicidal deaths of cultivators on such a large and systemic scale, therefore, constitute a matter of the highest concern both for the judicial wing and for the executive.”

An insurance plan that covers the assurance of a minimum life support system for cultivators, along with easy access to credit and information regarding alternate low-cost organic or natural farming, are some of the suggestions forwarded by the HC. The court has also asked the state government to reconsider the compensation package of Rs1 lakh handed to families of farmers, who had committed suicide, for a more realistic amount.

The court observed that the government’s process of identification of victims had been lethargic, bordering on apathy. “Causes of suicides are suppressed by the official machinery. The real causes are often camouflaged,” the judges said.

Noting that the identification of affected families, investigation of causes of suicide and prompt disbursal of compensation is the mandate of social justice, the court has directed the government to activate district level committees headed by district collectors to disburse financial assistance within 15 days of a suicide.

The order welcomed the state government’s decision to broaden the eligibility criterion for granting financial assistance and to reconsider all incidents of suicide since January 1, 2001, including the 414 cases found ineligible earlier.