Three Vidarbha farmers end life

Nagpur, April 20 (IANS) Three debt-ridden cotton farmers have ended their lives in the Vidarbha region since Thursday, an activist said Friday.

Gajanan Thorat of Garmmahsal in Washim district, Kamalabai Chavan of Wadner and Gajanan Ghotekar of Kothoda in Yavatmal district have killed themselves, said Kishor Tiwari of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti.

The farmers took their lives because of a sudden fall in cotton prices due to export restrictions and because they had not received any financial relief from the government, Tiwari told IANS.

He said one of the farmers, Ghotekar, in his suicide note, wrote: "Don't vote for the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party... They will destroy this country."

He said the Maharashtra government last December had declared a relief package of Rs.2,000 crore for the cotton farmers. "But till date, not a single paisa has been paid to the distressed farmers who continue to reel under debts."

The farmers were then hit by stringent exports conditions which led to a fall in prices of raw cotton from Rs.4,200 to Rs.3,400 per quintal, he said.

Tiwari said that when India produced 33-million bales of cotton and only 20 million bales were used domestically, "there is no reason to impose export restrictions".