According to NCRB, as many as 3,53,803 farm suicides have taken place between 1995 and 2018 across the country. 85.81% of the deceased were male farmers, indicating that around 50,188 female farmers had ended their lives in this period.
“I had to struggle eight long years to get one acre of land transferred to my name after the death of my husband,” said Vidya More, a 38-year-old woman farmer who had come to the national capital on Monday all the way from Osmananabad district of Maharashtra.
Vidya’s husband committed suicide in 2012 when she was only 30 years old following which, the liability they had, was on her shoulders. Even as the ex gratia compensation acts as an immediate relief to the families of the deceased, the government wasn’t ready to recognise the death of Vidya’s husband as a farm suicide.
Vidya is not the only one who had to face this issue. Korra Shantha, a 28-year-old woman farmer from Nalgonda district of Telangana tells a similar story.
Please click here to read more.