New Delhi: One more farmer committed suicide in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region on Thursday taking the total toll top to 25 in five days.
Pundalik Girsawle of village Tejapur consumed poison inside a government office on Wednesday after losing patience over the delay in receiving a relief cheque. He of came to the sub-district agriculture office on Wednesday morning for a fourth time in as many days and waited for the cheque till late in the evening before consuming poison.
Some employees rushed him to the hospital where he died within half-an-hour. A cheque worth Rs 4,470, folded many times over, was found in his pocket after the death, giving rise to speculation that some officials might have slipped it in while taking him to the hospital in an attempt to escape the rap.
Disctrict agriculture officer Arun Khangan blamed the bank for the delay in releasing the cheques. The bank was sending cheques to his office late and in small batches, leading to late payments to beneficiary farmers, he said.
"Pundalik got the cheque directly from the bank on Wednesday after much delay but was asked to return it for making an entry in the bank register and collect it later from the agriculture office," Khangan said.
Pundalik, who was 45, used to till a four-acre dry farmland that was in the name of his widowed mother and supported a family of five, including his wife and three daughters. The sanctioned aid was meant for buying a pair of bullocks.
Pundalik's suicide was 25th such incident in the region since the December 15 announcement of an aid of Rs 1,500 per hectare (up to two hectares) to cotton farmers and 71st in the current month.
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