Odisha govt denies reports of farmer suicides due to debt burden

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Nov 23:

The Odisha government today denied of any farmer committing suicide due to debt burden in the state.

This was informed by Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra to reporters here.

Mohapatra claimed that his statement was based on the reports submitted by collectors of districts affected by drought.

“In total till date we have received reports of 111 cases of alleged suicides by farmers, out of them 106 cases have been probed.  Of these 56 had not availed any loans,” Mohapatra said.

The SRC appealed to farmers not to worry over repayment of loans or take the extreme step since the government has extended the loan repayment period.

“In view of the prevailing drought condition, the state government has extended the period for repayment of loans. For that reason, Nabard and RBI have put a moratorium on collection of loan repayments by cooperative and commercial banks in the affected areas,” informed Mohapatra.

Dispelling newspaper reports of Centre seeking reports from the state government on the damages due to drought in the state Mohapatra said: “I have received no such letter.  Different states have different periods for harvesting of crops. In our state it’s towards the mid of December. That’s why we have given an interim report. Final report will be submitted after final crop cutting.”