Mumbai: Five more debt-ridden farmers committed suicide in the backward Vidarbha region yesterday.
With the latest suicides, the total number of farmers committing suicides in the Vidarbha region during first four months of the year, has reached 332.

The dead farmers were identified as Ramdas Dhale of Chicholi village, Ajabrao Meshram of Shivani village, Ramnna Pedkulwar of Aril village, all from Yavatmal district, Parvatibai Kadel of Poharadevi village in Washim district and Shriram Kakad of Sategaon village in Amaravati district.

Farmers' leader Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJAS) attributed the latest suicides by cotton growers to the continued agrarian crisis in eastern Maharashtra.

"Among the farmers who have committed suicide in the last 24 hours, a post-mortem has not yet been conducted on Dhale's body. With government officials busy with the Maharashtra Day celebrations, Dhale's body is lying unattended in the mortuary at the Yavatmal district hospital. Dhale committed suicide as he was not able to repay loans amounting to Rs200,000 taken from a nationalised bank and Rs100,000 from a local money lender," Tiwari said.

Talking about the crop failure in the Vidarbha region, Tiwari said: "Of the total 9,000,000 hectares of crop damaged in Maharashtra owing to poor monsoon till September last, 4,000,000 hectares were from Vidabrha.

"From the relief of Rs20 billion announced by the government, each cotton growers in Vidarbha was to get Rs8,000. The state government has not yet even prepared the list of farmers who were affected the crop failure," Tiwari said.