Deep in debt, farmer commits suicide fearing another crop failure

Rajkot, June 30 (UNI) Even as a farmer of Sarapdad village of Padadhari taluka allegedly committed suicide fearing crop failure for the third year in a row, District Magistrate M A Narmawala here today claimed the farmer did not sow any crop on three-fourth of his land this season.

Police sources said 44-year-old Rameshbhai Becharbhai Mungalpara (Patel) was found hanging from the ceiling of his cattle shed yesterday. He was immediatedly shifted to Rajkot Civil Hospital where he died after admission.

Ramesh was tense as the groundnut crop had failed due to delay in monsoon. The deceased had sown the crop twice earlier. He was in debt and was unable to bear further loss, which led him to take this extreme step, Haribhai, the brother of the deceased told the police.

On hearing the news, Mr Narmawala sent a fact-finding team to the village, led by Morbi Deputy Collector, Deputy DDO, District Agriculture officer, Mamlatdar and TDO.

The deceased's brother and cousin told the official team that Rameshbhai owned about 1.15 hectare (four bighas) of land and had sown cotton in one bigha, which stood one foot tall, and had not sown any crop in the remaining three bighas.

The official team was also told that Rameshbhai had taken Rs 20,400 loan to buy a Hero Honda motorcycle six months back and had paid back the instalments regularly. On June 23, he took crop loan of Rs 19,000 from Kisan Seva Sahkari Mandali of the Rajkot District Co-operative Bank.

The District Magistrate maintained that since the month-old cotton crop still stood high and the farmer did not owe any money back to Rajkot Bank, he had no reason to commit suicide for fear of failure of groundnut crop.

The police was further investigating the case to ascertain if he r had taken loan from other sources, since he had already suffered losses in groundnut crop during the last two seasons.

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