Courtesy: Sify.com
 
Patna, Jan 26: In a bizarre incident, over 1,700 farmers from Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh wrote to President A P J Abdul Kalam, seeking his permission to commit suicide because they were unable to repay bank loans drawn in excess of Rs 7 crore.

A delegation of farmers that met Governor Dr Balram Jakhar recently held the government officials responsible for their plight. They charged the government with misleading them into implementing an unfeasible lift irrigation scheme (LIS), which came with a 50 per cent grant for farmers.

As part of the LIS - worth Rs 60 lac - drain, canal or river water is channelled into big wells. The stored water is then discharged to canals using lift pumps to irrigate agricultural fields.

In 1988, the state promised farmers “prosperity” if they adopted the scheme. Banks, too, had eagerly disbursed loans. In 1996, each farmer in 81 of Jhabua villages was in debt without their parched lands getting a single drop of water.

By 2005, the banks were at the doors of the farmers armed with notices to take away their homestead and cattle. Between 1988 and 1993, 142 LIS were implemented and 16 more between 1995 and 1996. Kailash, chairperson of the Udwahan Sichai Pariyojna Peedit Hitgrahi Sangh, who led the delegation of farmers, said: “More than 1,700 farmers are facing a debt trap.”

The farmers had asked the Governor to scale down the quantum of the loan and invoke appropriate provisions of the law against the officials for misleading them. They blamed the failure of the scheme on inadequate technical assistance and poor construction materials.

The state government, however, has dismissed the farmers’ entreaty to Dr Kalam as a pressure tactic, but Ratanakar Raut, a water management expert, said: “It seems the government went ahead with the schemes in Jhabua without conducting a feasibility study.”