Sharmili Mallick

Ganjam: Despite the launch of Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme which claimed to benefit about 92% farmers of the State, the Odisha Government has failed to reduce the sufferings of farmers in the State. Two suicides in a span of four days have certainly silenced the hullabaloo of the government that had erupted following the launch of the KALIA scheme.

According to reports, farmer N Prakash Reddy of Pattapur village under Sanakhemundi block in Ganjam district was lying dead close to his farmland today.

Sources said Reddy had gone to his agricultural land Tuesday morning to sell his 11 sacks of paddy in the market, but when he did not return home till late night, his family members started searching for him. After a frantic search, he was found dead in a nearby farmland this morning.

Although the exact reason behind Reddy's death is yet to be ascertained, his family members alleged that he committed suicide by consuming poison.

They informed that he had taken Rs 50,000 loan from money lenders for cultivating his 1 acre land. However, he suffered massive crop failure and was under immense mental duress. Unable to bear the trauma, he took the extreme step, they said.

However, police and district administration officials are yet to respond on the issue.

In a similar incident on Sunday, a debt-ridden farmer of Samasingha village under Kolabira block in Jharsuguda district reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself with a rope inside his house. The deceased Yudhistir Mallik (48) was a sharecropper.

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