2 more AP farmers commit suicide

Unofficial figures put the number of suicides in the state at 10, while the Opposition counts up to 75. In the last two days, nine farmers have taken their own lives.

Two farmers, Chakali Ganganna (60) and Ragem Bakkaiah (45) both of Adilabad district, committed suicide as lack of rain dried up their crops and left them with no hope of redeeming their debt. While Ganganna was growing soyabean in his six acres of land, Bakkaiah had leased land to grow maize.

Six farmers a day
Accusing the state government of indifference to the suffering of farmers, Opposition leader and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu said, according to his information, six farmers were committing suicide daily in the state.

Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has admitted that the drought situation in the state was becoming critical with crops in 20 out of 23 districts withering.

Besides, water levels in reservoirs had fallen steeply and had forced longer hours of power cut. The total sown area this kharif was only 51 per cent of the normal.

Meanwhile, the groundwater reserves, too, have fallen drastically with critical levels reached in about 14 districts, falling by as much as 13-14 metres resulting in borewells drying up and pushing farmers into further desperation. Medak district which has the highest number of 1.6 lakh borewells has reported that as many as 20,000 have dried up.

The state government has spent Rs 82.51 crores on cloud seeding operations in five years from 2003 and the percentage of rainfall due to the operations ranged from 4.76 to 16.8. While the least was in 2004, the maximum rainfall of 16.8 was in 2007.