Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Dhananjay Munde informed the state legislative council that he will check if a former IAS officer has submitted a report stating that one lakh farmers in Marathwada region were contemplating suicide.
The minister was responding to a query raised Eknath Khadse of Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Khadse has raised the issue of a survey of 10 lakh farmers by Sunil Kendrekar when the bureaucrat was the divisional commissioner of Marathwada region, Munde said.
He was the divisional commissioner, so he must have submitted the report to the revenue department. I will check if report has reached the government. I will read it and let the House know what action is being taken, Munde said.
Khadse told the council that 10 lakh farmers in Marathwada were contacted for the survey to know their problems. The survey report claims one lakh farmers were contemplating suicide due to various reasons like infertile land, debt, lack of funds for daughter’s wedding, lack of remunerative prices for agri produce and drought, Khadse, a former state agriculture minister said.
The government says it will give Rs 6,000 per year per farmer. This means Rs 500 per month to a farmer, he said. Shiv Sena legislator Sanjay Shirsat told reporters at Vidhan Bhawan, where the monsoon session of the state legislature is underway, that action should be taken against Kendrekar if the report findings were found to be wrong. If one lakh farmers were contemplating suicide, what was Kendrekar doing as divisional commissioner? If the report is wrong, action should be action taken against him, he said.
Kendrekar took voluntary retirement from service while he was Aurangabad divisional commissioner. An IAS officer of the 2002 batch, Kendrekar was to retire on May 31, 2025. The government accepted his VRS request last month.