Kishore Bhandare, a farmer in Nashik district, consumed pesticide at his house after his family had gone off to sleep.
NASHIK: On the night of August 15, 2006, the country’s Independence Day, 45-year-old Kishore Bhandare, a farmer from Kasabe Sukane in Nashik district, consumed pesticide at his house after his family had gone off to sleep.
Bhandare owned 5 acres of land where he had planted soyabean crop and had raised a vineyard six months back. The floods destroyed both his farm and the vineyard and thereby his hopes to repay the debt to the tune of Rs3.5 lakhs. He is survived by his wife and three sons.
The floods in the region have proven detrimental to the agricultural activity here. Though the administration is carrying out damage assessment and doing panchnamas, farmers feel that it may take a long time till they actually get the compensation. The series of suicides in the agricultural belt of Nashik does not seem to stop. Earlier it was the low price of onions, then a failed crop season and now the floods that have destroyed the standing crops.
The present suicide case takes the tally of farmers committing suicide since Feb 2006 in this region to 10. The issue has been discussed on political platforms by all parties and at government levels as well but no reprieve seems to be at hand. Also many farmers express scepticism on the amount of the compensation that will be given.
States Jagan Nathe, a farmer and office bearer of the Shetkari Sanghatana in Chandori, Niphad, “The crop loss due to floods in the region of Niphad itself has been around
Rs150 crores. We don’t think that the compensations will be anywhere close to it. Last time in 1976, when Chandori and Niphad were hit by the floods, we got a compensation of Rs400 per acre as against the loss of Rs800-1000, per acre at that time. What different can we expect now? The farmer has always been at the mercy of the nature and invariably he suffers.”
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