PM on two day visit to Vidarbha from tommorrow

Mumbai, June 29: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Nagpur,the second capital of Maharashtra, tommorrow on a two-day visit to Vidarbha to take a first hand account of the growing incidence of farmer suicides and review the agrarian crisis with the state administration.

Dr Singh will address a press conference on Saturday at 1330 hrs,a release issued here today said.

He will tour Dhamangaon in Amravati district, Waifed in Wardha district tommorrow to meet suicide affected families and debt-stressed farmers and also visit their homes.

Dr Singh will arrive in Nagpur at 1005 hrs and proceed to Dhamangaon. The meetings with farmers and their families will last for one hour each in all the districts. The Prime Minister will be at the Sewagram Ashram for more than three hours. At Waifed in Wardha district, he will spend one hour with the farmers families.

He will return to Nagpur in the evening.

On Saturday, he will visit Koljhari village in Yavatmal district in the morning and return to Nagpur to review agriculture issues and Vidarbha's agrarian crisis with state ministers, officials, district collectors, zilla parishad presidents, CEOs and lead bankers.

After the press conference, he will review implementation of key development programmes in Vidarbha. There will be 11 five minute presentations and discussions. He will leave for Delhi at 1900 hrs, the release said.

Meanwhile, the Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti in a press release issued here said that farmers will question Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on why they did not visit families of farmers who committed suicide so far.

The release stated that Mr Pawar and Mr Deshmukh will accompany the Prime Minister to the home of Gosavi Pawar in Koljhari village of Yavatmail district on July one and they would be asked why did they not visit them earlier.

The release said that the villagers have prepared a memorandum to be given to the Prime Minister that their village was controlled by moneylenders and banks who do not give loan to the farmers. In the last six months, no government job was available and 50 per cent farmers have not resumed sowing operations due to lack of money.

They have demanded new crop loan without any conditions and Rs 3000 per quintal as cotton price.

The Samiti has alleged that the government has launched effort to cancel Prime Mnister's Koljhari halt. It has urged the Prime Minister to come to Yavatmal by road instead of helicopter.

UNI