BATHINDA—The sad saga of Punjab’s farm crisis continues with two more indebted farmers hanging themselves in the district.
In Phul town, farmer and village union leader Tehal Singh ended his life by hanging himself from a beam of the ceiling of his house. The police found a suicide note in which the deceased wrote that he was taking this extreme step owing to his precarious fiscal condition.
Similarly, Jagmeet Singh, resident of Chak Fateh Singhwala village in the Bucho block hung himself. He was under debt, as told by his family members, and was disturbed for the last two or three months. He came back home from the fields last afternoon after sowing the cotton crop. He went to his room to take a nap, but later in the evening he was found hanged.
Local leaders of Bharti Kisan Union (BKU) said that two years back, Jagmeet’s father Khem Singh’s leg had been fractured in a horrific accident. The family had to take a loan of between ₹ 600,000 to 7oo,000 from private moneylenders to pay the medical bills. Jagmeet, who had a small landholding, failed to pay the debt that took his life.
The agrarian crisis in Punjab is worsening day by day that has taken the precious lives and livelihood of its of farmers and cultivators who have abandoned their ancestral occupation by the hundreds of thousands due to loss of income, profits and low income earning. Low prices of crops, poor arrangement of procurement, exploitation of state’s river water by neighboring states etc. are some of the main reasons behind the crisis.
