A 45-year-old Chhattisgarh farmer allegedly died by suicide in Bastar’s Kondagaon district, officials said on Saturday. His family members claimed that the farmer was worried about selling his paddy crops cultivated over six acres of land after learning that the maximum area of his farm under paddy production was written off in the government record for the purpose of procurement.
Meanwhile, the district administration has suspended a revenue official for allegedly making an erroneous entry for the farmer’s paddy cultivation area in the government record.
However, the administration said that the error was not the reason for the farmer’s death. The farmer was found dead on December 2.
As per preliminary information, Markam had sown paddy on his 2.731 hectare (6.70 acre) of land and was eligible to sell around 100 quintal of paddy at the minimum support price (MSP) in the cooperative society, Kondagaon collector Pushpendra Kumar Meena said.
The state government has started a paddy procurement drive from December 1 and 15 quintals of paddy is purchased at MSP from every registered farmer for every acre of land under cultivation for the crop.
On December 2, Markam had sent his relative to local Large Area Multi-purpose Society (LAMPS) to collect the token for selling his paddy crop following which he learnt that he was only eligible to sell around 11 quintals as the record showed only 0.32 hectare or 0.79 acre of his farm land under paddy cultivation.
Next day, he allegedly took his own life following which the local sub divisional magistrate (revenue) was asked for a report, Meena said.
“The SDM found that there were multiple factors that might have prompted Markam to end his life. According to his family, he had been under depression since the death of his son two years back and had started consuming liquor,” the collector said.
The probe also revealed that the alleged negligence by the patwari (revenue official) resulted in the erroneous entry of Markam’s paddy cultivation area.
The patwari has been suspended and the concerned tehsildar was issued a show-cause notice, he said.
However, if Markam would have contacted the officials, the error could have been rectified immediately, he added.
BJP national vice president and former chief minister Raman Singh has alleged that another farmer’s life in the state had been lost to misrule and poor policies of the state government.
He alleged that the government was insensitively hell bent on branding the victim as an addict and the chief minister was not ashamed of that.
