Farmer's Suicide in Bundelkhand Region, India

Bundelkhand region is known for its abundance of natural resources but today this is one of the poorest regions of the country. The total amount of current outstanding rural bank debts in Bundelkhand is Rs 4,370.32 crore. This is 21% more than 2010 when the total bank debts stood at Rs 3,613.22 crore. As many as 519 suicides have been reported from the seven districts of the parched and extremely backward region in the five months of this year. In the year 2009, 568 farmers and in 2010, 583 farmers have committed suicide due to various reasons in Bundelkhand as per official records. Taking suo moto action on the reports of farmer's suicide and distress in Bundelkhand region, Allahabad High Court tasked Uttar Pradesh and Central Government to submit report. Since 2002, three years have been declared drought-affected: in 2002, 2004 and 2009. Bundelkhand region covers seven districts of Uttar Pradesh (Banda, Chitrakoot, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalipur and Mahoba) and six districts of Madhya Pradesh (Chhatarpur, Damoh, Datia, Panna, Sagar and Tikamgarh). Rivers like Ken, Betwa, Yamuna, Mandakini and many other seasonal rivers flow through Bundelkhand but the area is yet rain fed.

The indebtedness: The indebtedness among farmers can be understood by the official records that total amount of current outstanding bank debts in Bundelkhand is Rs 4,370.32 crore. This is 21% more than 2010 when the total bank debts stood at Rs 3,613.22 crore. In four of the worst affected districts- Banda, Hamirpur, Lalitpur and Jhansi, farmers owe banks about Rs. 2750 crores. Siddiqui (2011) revealed the fact that total loan outstanding of Rs. 1791 crore is only on the farmers of Chitrakoot Dham Karwi commissionaire.

A Study conducted by Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune reveal that rural indebtedness is acting only as a "trigger" for a complex range of socio-economic factors that lead to suicides. Analysis of 30 farmer suicide cases revealed that among small farmers while 36.37% committed suicide "due to loss of agricultural income and indebtedness", in case of medium farmer, this factor amounted to 25% of suicides and in case of large farmers, only 14.29%. Study reveals that while crop failure and indebtedness were primarily responsible for suicides among small farmers, in the case of medium and large farmers serious family crisis, drinking and gambling habits and chronic illness or old age led to suicides. The element of self-respect is very strong in Vidarbha and often results in farmers taking drastic steps to maintain their dignity. (Vaidya 2006). The study indicated that given a choice, 40% of farmers would want to quit agriculture and take up some other career. The SAS data and its analysis indicated that the increased cost of cultivation and the sharp deceleration in the growth of prices of many agricultural commodities were among factors that had led to high indebtedness among farmers, 42% of the farmers borrowed from money-lenders.

Financial assistance: The Union Cabinet approved Rs 7,277 crore Drought Mitigation Special Package for the integrated development of the drought-hit Bundelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh from 2009 to 2010. Under the package, the main strategy is optimisation of water resources through rainwater harvesting and proper utilisation of the river systems. Laying stress on agriculture, central to the country's growth, the Finance Minister announced a slew of measures, including Rs.1 lakh crore more farm credit at subsidised rates, removal of production and distribution bottlenecks in food items, and a second green revolution in the east. "Agriculture development is central to our growth strategy. Measures taken during the current year have started attracting private investment in agriculture and agro processing activities, this process has to be deepened further," said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the 2011-12 budget in the Lok Sabha.

To boost the growth of farm sector, the government has raised the target of credit flow to farmers to Rs.4.75 lakh crore in fiscal 2011-12 as against Rs.3.75 lakh crore in the current financial year, he said. Banks have been asked to step up direct lending for agriculture and credit to small and marginal farmers, Mukherjee said. The farm credits will be heavily subsidised and the rate of interest will be 4 percent per annum. The government is providing subsidised credit to farmers under interest subvention scheme. Under this, short term crop loans are given to farmers at an annual interest rate of 7 percent. In the current financial year the government is providing additional 2 percent interest subvention to those farmers who repay their crop loans on time.

Source: www.bundelkhand.in

                                       I am poor!

BPL families in Madhya Pradesh carry poor label 

State Devised Shameful Move To Mark Homes To Check Ineligible Beneficiaries 

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government is yet to remove the controversial Mein Garib hoon (I am poor) brandings on houses of below poverty line(BPL)families a move adopted to expose ineligible BPL beneficiaries.The administration in some districts of Madhya Pradesh,nearly two years ago,devised a scheme to brand homes in order to identify genuine BPL families.

The idea worked well as a large number of ineligible people approached authoritiesto gettheir namesdeleted from the BPL list,after being shamed of being branded as poor.The move attracted widespread criticism,with familiesclaiming it amounted to insulting BPL families.

The district,however,said the decision was an initiative of Gram Sabhas as part of their campaign to identity fake beneficiaries.

In 2010,the BJP government had objected to such brandings and announced their removal.The controversy gradually died down.

Markings continue to be seen on almost every house in a large number of villages,spread over in about 20 panchayats of Khalwa development block,with a few fading owing to the rain.Its humiliating and the villagers are annoyed,however,there is no one to get these markings removed, says a tribal woman sarpanch of village Jamligujar SomtiBai,whoherself figures in the BPL list,adding that it is inappropriate to brand BPL families in this manner.

Journalist Jai Nagda says the markings,in bold letters,along with BPL card numbers can be seen on a number of rural households around Ashapur,about 40 km away from Khandwa district headquarters.Quoting locals,he said similar markings were also made on the houses of a few influential people,who had obtained BPL cards,but instantly removed them.

There are about 68.17 lakh BPL card holders in Madhya Pradesh while the Centre has approved a list of only 42 lakh families as those living below the poverty line.The state government had admitted in the past that there have been ineligible beneficiaries who have obtained BPL cards,apparently to benefit from the various government schemes meant for the poor.

Source: Our visits to MP and Times of India

National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW)

Call For Existing Reports / Research Papers

The Gender Rights, Gender based Violence and Law Enforcement Domain of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (MoWCD, GOI) is conducting “An in-house critical assessment of existing laws, policies, practices and implementation regimes impacting women and their participation in the labour workforce to develop convergence strategies/models to encourage their increased participation and retention.”

The objective of the critical assessment is to 1) identify lacunae in the existing law, policy and implementation regime, if any 2) identify opportunities for convergence within existing laws, policies and their implementing bodies, authorities and other agencies and 3) develop policy prescriptions for models/strategies for achieving such convergence which can be shared with the relevant authorities.

This critical assessment aims for a wide coverage of both organized and unorganized workforce in private as well as government undertakings and also including self employed/ad-hoc/contractual labour. Within this, the critical assessment shall cover:
a) Laws/Policies/Practices that affect working hours/flexible timings for women; 
b) Laws/Policies/Practicesthat affect equal remuneration and minimum wages; 
c) Laws/Policies/Practicesthat affect maternity benefits; crèche facilities; social security benefits; health / disability/ and old age benefits; safety / security/ and compensation for accidents;
d) Laws/Policies/Practices that affect sexual harassment at the workplace and gender bias in recruitment and professional policies; 
e) Laws/Policies/Practices that affect double burden (as women and as women workers); invisible’ / unpaid work for women workers.
f) Laws/Policies/Practices that impact women’s choices on the nature of their employment/participation in the labour workforce.
g) Laws/Policies/Practices concerning occupational health and safety for women in the work place.
h) Laws/Policies/Practices concerning child labour with emphasis on the girl child
i) Laws/Policies/Practices concerning women and their representation and participation in trade unions. 

Recognizing that there are already many studies that have been done in the subject areas, the first step under this research project is to collate existing materials/studies. In order to do this, reports/research papers etc. conducted or prepared in the last five years on any aspect of the above areas are hereby invited for submission.

The submitted reports/papers shall be assessed, filtered and selected by an internal committee of the NMEW. The non-institutional authors of selected reports/papers shall be paid an honorarium. Selected reports/papers shall be compiled and shall form a base document for further actions in the critical assessment and the authors of the same shall be attributed wherever possible.

Submitted papers should be complete with annexures. The cover page should clearly identify the title of the paper, the authors, the areas of research and funding agency, if any. The papers must be submitted in soft copy as a word document and emailed to 

nmew.gr@gmail.com 

no later than 14th September.  Only the submitters of selected reports/papers will be contacted.

HARIT PRAYAS@Jhansi: bringing change to the Bundekhad region

Every project has its own life cycle. The project duration of Harit Prayas is three years and this June, it has completed its half journey. It is important to know that in the last one and a half year the project Harit Prayas has reached to a stage where 291 Farmers’ club members and 192 SHG women (with saving of INR 156,200/-) are accompanying JCSS to achieve the goal of ‘Ensured Food Security leading towards reduction in Migration’ (source: PMF Harit Prayas).

This report deals with the changes and development made during the period of six months i.e. from January to June 2012.

Change factor 

Farmer’s suicide in India!

Let’s read this, which may be supporting factor on our understanding on farmer’s suicide:

In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh. The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers' suicide and farm-related distress in general. The despair has deepened over the past year with 18 of the 28 states reporting more suicides. The farmer suicide graph has been steadily rising.

The numbers are stark and in your face: According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data from 2009, more than 216, 000 farmers have killed themselves since 1997. Add the figures for 1995, 1996 and 2010 and the total crosses 250,000. That is, two farmers a day for the past 15 years.

Veteran journalist and The Hindu Rural Affairs editor P. Sainath says: "We have been undergoing the largest catastrophe of our independent history — the suicides of nearly a quarter of a million farmers since 1995. We are talking of the largest recorded rate of suicides in human history.”

Sainath was speaking at the Third Michael Sprinker Lecture on “Death on the Farm: Agrarian crisis and inequality” at the Institute of Development Studies in Kolkata.

Bringing to light several stark contrasts in India, where the average CEO earns 30,000 times more than the average worker, Sainath said: "While labor productivity rose 84 percent, real wages of laborers dropped 22 percent. The country imports wheat from Australia, which was importing wheat nine years ago from Punjab. It exports 20 million tonnes of grain at Rs. 5.45/kg, whereas the same grain is sold to the poor at Rs. 6.15/kg."

And there lies the problem, which UPA 2 calls systemic. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, whose state has the worst figures for the 10th consecutive year, has stopped quoting NCRB figures since 2007.

In 2009, more than 17,000 farmers committed suicide, the worst count since 2004.

But the figures could be worse, says Sainath, who first published the story. He explains the actual numbers could be beyond a quarter million people.

"The numbers are from the annual report of the government of India's own National Crime Records Bureau. Their yearly total for farmer suicides from 1995 to 2009 brings us to a total of 240,000. So even if we assume that 2010 saw far fewer suicides than the average of the last decade, it still takes the figure past 250,000 or a quarter of a million farmer suicides," says  Sainath.

If you haven't woken up yet, now is the time.

For the 10th year on the trot, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's home state has had the worst record with 2,872 farmers committing suicide, despite the much hyped Prime Minister's relief package.

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh follow, with two-thirds of farmer suicides being reported from these states.

In fact, according to a written reply, MP's Home Minister, Uma Shankar Gupta, as many as 5,838 farmers ended their lives during the period from 2006 to 2010. Surprisingly, the Minister maintained that only six of the 5,838 farmers killed themselves due to being overburdened with debt. Prior to this, replying to Congress Party legislator Ramnivas Rawat's query, the Home Minister said that 89 farmers had committed suicide in 87 days since November 6, 2010. However, Gupta added that only three of them took the extreme step due to debt.

Sainath emphasizes: "Farmer suicide is not the crisis, it is the outcome of the crisis."

And here's how it all started.

In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh.

The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers' suicide and farm-related distress in general. Subsequently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs. 110 billion (about $2.4 billion) to be spent by the government in Vidarbha.

The families of farmers, who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs.100,000 (about $2,000) by the government. This figure kept varying, depending on how much criticism the government was facing from the media and the Oppo-sition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. But the suicides kept happening.

Initially, the suicides that began to be reported out of Vidharbha (a cotton-growing region) were attributed to the farmers' indebtedness to money-lenders because of the shift to the of Bt Cotton.

Farmers had to borrow money to buy the more expensive seeds. And committed suicide when they could not pay back the money.

However, the Bt Cotton theory was soon sidelined. The major causes that were identified were this: India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; in the absence of any responsible counseling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became the only option for them.

The problems that plagued the farmers 15 years ago are still glaringly present today: There is little credit available. What is available is very expensive. There is no advice on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming is not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government are virtually non-existent.

Traditionally, support systems in the villages of India have been provided for by the government.

The despair has deepened over the past year with 18 of the 28 states reporting more suicides. The farmer suicide graph has been steadily rising.

"I believe the issue is more systemic. Because if you are talking about 15 years, you are talking about one and a half decades. There is a need to hold our horses, study the report and then comment," said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewary.

In 2007, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, had said that there were more than 149,000 farmer suicides between 1997 and 2005. However, he has not quoted NCRB numbers ever since. Nor has he openly acknowledged the distress.

But the first step towards resolving a crisis is conceding that one exists.

Source: Various materials from internet and The Hindu.

HARIT PRAYAS: bringing change to the Bundekhad region

Every project has its own life cycle. The project duration of Harit Prayas is three years and this June, it has completed its half journey. It is important to know that in the last one and a half year the project Harit Prayas has reached to a stage where 291 Farmers’ club members and 192 SHG women (with saving of INR 156,200/-) are accompanying JCSS to achieve the goal of ‘Ensured Food Security leading towards reduction in Migration’ (source: PMF Harit Prayas).

This report deals with the changes and development made during the period of six months i.e. from January to June 2012.

Change factor: 

WALK-IN INTERVIEW!

 
Project Coordinator ( for livelihood based project supported by Caritas India)

Organisation: Gwalior Catholic Seva Samaj (GCSS)

Eligibility: Masters in sociology, social work, development management, rural development with 60% .

Salary: Based on the capability and experience.

Joining: Immediate

Interview Date: 25th August 2012 , Time : 10.30 am
Venue:

Gwalior Catholic Seva Samaj (GCSS)
Opp. Sandhu Market, Bhind Road,
Maharajpura, Gwalior -474 020
Mob: 09212742881
Tel: 0751-2471466

Do come with the copy of your CV/bio-data and with the copies of certificates (optional) you want to show during the interview process.

Process of Interview would be:

• Written Exam (subjective) on various development acts. Written exam would be in Hindi, English and pictorial.
• Group Discussion
• Panel Interview

Each and every round would be an elimination round.

CAG's coal report

The CAG in its report, tabled in Parliament, names 25 companies including Essar Power, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Tata Power and Jindal Steel and Power which have got the blocks in various states.

"Delay in introduction of the process of competitive bidding has rendered the existing process beneficial to the private companies. Audit has estimated financial gains to the tune of Rs 1.86 lakh crore likely to accrue to private coal block allottees," CAG said in a report on allocation of coal blocks. The CAG said it has arrived at the estimates based on the average cost of production and average sale price of opencast mines of Coal India in the year 2010-11.

"A part of this financial gain could have accrued to the national exchequer by operationalising the decision taken years earlier to introduce competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks," CAG said.

The auditing body said it is "of strong opinion that there is a need for strict regulatory and monitoring mechanism to ensure that benefit of cheaper coal is passed on consumers".

The concept of allocation of captive coal blocks through competitive bidding was announced in 2004. However, government is yet to finalise the modus operandi of competitive bidding.

CIL suffered 116 MT output loss due to delays in projects: CAG 

The world's largest miner Coal India (CIL) suffered production losses to the tune of 116 million tonnes (MT) on account of delays in execution of new projects, government auditor CAG has said.

Delays ranging from "one to 12 years" in execution of 32 projects under different subsidiaries of CIL entailed "loss of production by 115.95 MT," CAG said in its report on "Allocation of Coal Blocks and Augmentation of Coal Production".

The delays, it said, pertained to "problems of land acquisition, forest clearance, adverse geo-mining condition, tender finalisation for equipment of and construction of Coal Handling Plant (CHP) and railway siding," it said.

CAG observed that delays took place despite an expert committee emphasising way back in 2005 the need for setting up of a permanent special task force to monitor progress of clearances and project implementation of schemes to be completed by the end of XIth Five Year Plan (2007-12).

"In order to bridge the demand-supply gap of coal, new coal projects are required to be completed in a time bound manner," it said.

However, the coal ministry stated in January, 2012 that "response from ministry of environment and forest is awaited."

Noting that CIL could not match with the rate of increase in coal production due to delays in execution of augmentation of projects on account of "lack of coordinated and planned approach by various government agencies involved in statutory clearances and land execution," CAG asked CIL to fix output targets in line with the targets by the Planning Commission.State-run Coal India is the largest domestic producer of dry-fuel and accounts for over 80 per cent of the total domestic production.

Source: Times of India  (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Coalgate-CAG-reports-slam-UPA-government-BJP-demands-PMs-resignation/articleshow/15531616.cms?) 

Recruitment

Project Coordinator- Livelihood

Khandwa Dioceses Social Service Society (KDSS) (Khandwa-Madhya Pradesh) is one of the leading non-profit organizations working in the Madhya Pradesh region for the upliftment of the deprived community. It works in the area of community development, human trafficking, women empowerment, Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Livelihood.

At present KDSS needs a young dynamic and highly active Project Coordinator for a new innovative project on Livelihood-JEEVIKA. JEEVIKA project is being supported by the Caritas India and is being implemented by the KDSS in 15 villages of Khalwa block of Khandwa District. It’s a new innovative project involved filed work, office work, research work and many different trainings. The same project is also being implemented in Indore, Shehore, Shivpuri, Umariya, Ujjain & Jhabuwa districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Name of the Post: Project Coordinator

Location: Khandwa (Madhya Pradesh)

Functional Area: Programme Management

Qualification:

• Experience in the area of community development especially in sustainable agricultural and government schemes (NREGS) activities through CBOs.

• Experience in the area of government Liasioning

• Effective verbal and written communications skills in English, including computing skills.

• Ability to undertake unaccompanied travel in interior rural areas.

• Post Graduate in Rural Management, Rural Development, Social Work from a reputed institution with minimum 60% of marks and (mode of study at PG level must be English) from reputed institutes like XISS, TISS, XIM-B, Nirmala Niketan, TDA-Madurai, BHU, Delhi University  

Responsibilities

 Set overall directions/strategies of the project

 Regular follow up on implementation and participatory monitoring of the project to attain desirable outputs.

 Regular liaison with CARITAS for reporting and guidance. Implementation of overall plans within the district specific context and proper monitoring and reporting.

 Extensive field visits to support direct actions field area.

Liaison with district administration for effective policy advocacy

 Undertake capacity building initiatives at the grassroots for effective learning and support. Planning and conducting trainings.

 Prepare best management of capacity building inputs through participatory monitoring and documentation.

 Review the progress of activities at cluster of villages

 Develop strategy for intervening with the marginalised sections of the village and provide handholding support to women/ dalit members as per needs.

 Documentation of capacity building experiences for replication. Ensure timely completion of the activities and proper documentation

Providing access to information to Panchayats and Gram Sabha members

Salary and other benefits: 15000/-pm plus travel allowance, trainings and opportunity to be the part of innovative project.

How to apply: Interested candidates (both male and female) can send their CV along by 22^nd August 2012 with the covering letter and a page note (not more than 200 words) on ‘Importance of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in better management of MGNREGA’

You can send the mail to  vinodnmtt@gmail.com   

To know more about the project you can also log on to www.haritprayas.blogspot.com  , www.liferajasthan.blogspot.com or www.caritasindia.org or www.mpsss.org

HARIT PRAYAS…changing lives!

This is to inform you that this morning a farmer from Chamraua village called me up and informed me that on 4th of August scientists from K.V.K (Dr. Mukesh Chand and Dr. Jialal Gupta) visited the village and saw all the 5 demo plots of Maize. 30 farmers participated in the village level meeting. The issues discussed at the village level meeting were -

a. Organic farming in the Kharif crops

b. How to save Kharif crops from insects?

c. Maize production and its use as fodder for cattle

Achievement for Harit Prayas Project

As per the Baseline survey of Harit Prayas project in the project village (Chamraua, in this case), people were not aware of any government institution like K.V.K. which supports farmers in different way. In the month of July, five farmers of chamraua village had received quality certified seed variety of Maize (ref: HYPR, Jan-June, 2012). Now on 4th of August K.V.K scientists went to the village chamraua. They observed the Maize demo plots. Farmers were happy to see scientists among them and at their farmland and they asked several questions regarding Kharif crops and organic farming.

Linking farmers with specialized Government Organisation will facilitate them to make scientific farming practices sustainable. This result has been achieved due to continuous effort of team members of Harit Prayas project of JCSS.

# Note- One must notice that how much happy the farmer, who informed me about this, was!

A mail from Ex-coordinator of HARIT PRAYAS Jhansi ( Mr. Kumar Ratan)

         Change factor in last six months in HARIT PRAYAS @ Chatarpur ( Satna)