Study finds women from farmer sucide families are in distress

For those thinking suicide is the end of miseries for debt-ridden farmers, there is more to it. Outstanding loans and lack of support system from the government are plaguing the woman survivors of agrarian families across the state.

Delving deep into post-suicide life of the deceased farmers’ families across the state, a study by the Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch of Karnataka (Makam) has presented painful details of the woman survivors of these families.

Painting a grim picture, the study revealed that over 65% of the farmer suicide households are indebted to private moneylenders while 72% of these women did not have a clear picture of the outstanding debts against their sons, husbands or fathers who ended their lives.

Munivenkatappa, a farmer in Kolar committed suicide owing to mounting debt. But in a span of a few months, his wife Neelamma started receiving notices from financial institutions.

The study, done during November-December 2019 by interacting with 52 families in five districts— Kolar, Tumakuru, Dharwad, Mandya and Mysuru, reveals that these families also had outstanding debts with cooperative societies, scheduled commercial banks and micro-finance institutions.

“The banks and cooperative societies should adopt a humane approach in such situations and this is where the government needs to step-in by initiating one-time settlement on behalf of the family without jeopardising the credit history of the woman farmer. If this is done, she will be eligible for a loan to get on with her farming enterprise,” opined Kavitha Kuruganti, National Facilitation Team member of Makaam.

Even though the state rolled out a relief and rehabilitation package for the welfare of surviving members , only 71% received a compensation of Rs 5 lakh. Interestingly, the pension support of Rs 2,000 per month is being received by only 65% of the surviving women. The kids in 8% of the families had to stay away from school due to death
of farmers.

“In 16% of the sample cases, woman farmers became farm labourers from being a cultivating farmer. In some other cases, they had to mortgage their land to moneylenders. Most of these survivors were young within the age group of 30 to 55-years and had hardly any exposure to any support mechanism,” the study
stated.

Attesting the plight, Manjunath (24), is under severe distress after a moneylender with whom his father had obtained the loan, has refused to return the mortgaged land papers despite repaying large share of the pending debt. “Manjunath’s mother is worried that without institutional support, she may have to lose her son the way she lost her husband a year ago,” a researcher revealed.

The study's recommendations:
* Set up an institutional coordination committee.
* Give ID cards to these women enabling access to various depts.
* Liberate them from outstanding debts.
* Create a detailed database of women farmers from the suicide affected states
* Helplines like the Kisan Mitra in some districts of Telangana should be initiated in all districts
* Agriculture Labourers also need relief and rehabilitation package