SC finally intervenes in ‘Farmer Suicide’ issue, seeks govt’s response

As we all know, farming is the major occupation of the preponderance of the citizens living in the rural regions of India. Yet, the rising suicide cases among the rural farmers prove that our political executives as well as permanent executives- our policy makers and implementers are least bothered about this fact. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly seventy years after the independence, we still have not constructed a concrete policy to protect the farmers. Finally, the top court of the country, the Supreme Court of India, has intervened in the issue and sought a detailed response from the center government, some selected state governments and RBI on the policies intended to ensure the financial security of ailing farmers who often fall into the trap of debt due to the frequent crop failures. A bench of the top court, considering a PIL seeking the court’s intervention in the farmer’s suicide issue of Gujarat, headed by the Chief Justice J S Khehar has criticised the centre government for not formulating a feasible national policy to protect the farmers and advised the petitioners to extend the scope of PIL as Gujarat is not the only state suffering from the farmer suicide issue. A record, published by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2014, reported that nearly 5,650 farmers had committed suicide that year. In that list, Maharashtra came at the top, with the maximum number of suicide death cases of over 2,568, while Telangana bagged the second position and Madhya Pradesh clinched the third position. Anyway, experts opine that it is satisfactory that in these late hours a powerful authority comes in defence of the farmer community. Is it too late for an authority to intervene in the farmer suicide issue? Can this issue be resolved through creating a national policy in these late hours?

Vignesh

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