Factors behind suicides by farmers

  OF late, the issue of suicides by farmers in Punjab and Haryana is engaging the attention of the public.

Besides other causes, I feel tractor manufacturing companies, dealers, loaning agencies and the governments are instrumental in pushing the farmers into a debt-trap and death-trap.

A zamindar of less than 20 acres of land-holding cannot afford a tractor at all. But the situation is altogether different in the two states. Here all the four agencies have enticed zamindars to purchase tractors. Nobody realises how a farmer of a small holding will afford the acquisition of a tractor and its maintenance.

In the region, a vast majority of the farmers have small holdings — 5 to 10 acres. Through sheer ignorance, most of them bought the tractors on loan without fully knowing the implications of repayment of loan instalments. In villages about 50 per cent of the households have tractors, and the average land-holding of a village varies from 1000 to 1500 acres.

They have work for the tractors only for a few days. During most of the time the tractor remains idle in the courtyard like a white elephant, demanding occasional repairs. Its value depreciates everyday and the loan instalments get accumulated. This critical situation pushes the zamindars to take to this ghastly step of committing suicide. Hardly 10 per cent of the zamindars having tractors are successful farmers.

Besides taking other steps, the government should dissuade small farmers from buying tractors in order to save them from death-traps.

Another reason for the indebtedness of the farmers is the lavish spending by them on the marriages of their wards, for false prestige and status. This practice should be discouraged.

T. R. GOYAL
Manimajra (Chandigarh)

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Trap for Himachalis

The letter “HP & tourism” (Nov 7) attracts notice for its repetitive character.

Of late, letters on the subject have been appearing continuously in this column, pleading that Section 118 of the HP Land & Tenancy Act should be repealed so as to allow “outsiders” to purchase land and establish industrial units/tourists projects, etc. The step, the letter-writers argue, would help make the state rich and prosperous.

The Himachalis at large, it must be noted, are poor, simple-minded and gullible people. For their livelihood they, by and large, depend on their small land-holdings. By offering irresistibly attractive prices for their land the ultra-rich people of the neighbouring states would simply gobble up their holdings, eventually reducing them to the status of hapless “pahari mundoos”.

Thus, to my mind, Section 118 of the Land Act can be repealed/amended only to the general peril of the people of the state. The powers that be would be well advised to beware of the “golden trap” being laid by the super-rich “outsiders” to serve their selfish ends.

TARA CHAND
Ambota (Una)

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Ground water in India

The Union Minister of State for Rural Areas and Employment, while speaking at Thiruvananthapuram about the condition of ground water in Kerala, has cautioned that if remedial measures were not taken for recharging it, the country may have to import this “commodity” (The Tribune, October 28).

We are fast moving towards this culture of import, be it onions or ground water. This is due to lack of adventurism to explore and exploit the local resources and devise such policies as are conducive to self-sufficiency in respect of at least the basic necessities of life.

The condition of ground water in Haryana is equally serious. Over five lakhs of its tubewells, which were instrumental in converting this state from a deficit area in foodgrains into a surplus one, are now facing extinction because of ground water depletion. The only redeeming feature in this case is that the surplus water for recharging has not to be imported from outside the state but is available within. Even in this age of water shortage, it is being allowed to go waste via its rainwater drains. What is, however, disturbing is that neither Haryana nor any other state in India has got the necessary expertise to use it for recharging ground water.

As necessity is the mother of inventions, Haryana is left with no other choice but to start research on this subject and become a pioneer in the field.

S. P. MALHOTRA
Formerly Engineer-in-Chief,
Irrigation Deptt., Haryana
Panchkula

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Shimla’s parking blues

The congestion of vehicular traffic on the Shimla’s already narrow roads and lanes is well known. With the number of local as well visitors’ vehicles now increasing in geometrical progression, the congestion and the consequent jams are bursting at the seams. The lane taking off from Cart Road near Green Field and leading to the District Courts and The Mall is the worst-affected portion. Nearly everybody wishes to alight from his conveyance at The Mall only. The entire stretch from the ARTRAC (Old Army Headquarters) complex upwards has an endless chain of vehicles parked bumper to bumper. They leave hardly any space for even the quickly-come-and-go-vehicle. The lane thus becomes the town’s worst traffic jam point.

I suggest the following remedial measures.

(i) While the state’s long-term schemes for more parking places materialise, the authorities might think of raising improvised wooden trusses and or fabricated steel structures on the vacant triangular spaces in-between the hair-pin zigs of the lane to accommodate light vehicles, including two-wheelers.

(ii) No vehicle — whether of the government or privately owned — should be allowed to remain parked, even in authorised parking areas, for more than an hour.

(iii) The police and Army officers whose vehicles hog the invaluable parking space most might like to be generous to drive up and park their vehicles in the affected area only if unavoidable.

(iv) The state authorities, including ARTRAC, should encourage the clubbing of the conveyance facility for their officers not only for economising the parking space but also for saving petrol and helping the pollution cause.

K.L. NOATAY
Shimla