A stitch in time saves nine

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Rumour mills are agog with word of a cess to be levied by the government to write off debts of suicide prone farmers. After several insignificant attempts at farmer welfare, the government has come up with this populist idea just before general elections. It is not populism in itself that needs to be criticised, though. After all, incumbent political parties are in the business of offering sops to win elections. However, once a sop decision has been made, it is advisable to be imaginative in its provision and allocation of benefits.

Very often, populist measures that gift large amounts of money to the poor fail to reach the targeted population, resulting instead in inflationary pressure that erodes the popularity of an incumbent government.

Indebtedness has been touted as a major reason for the incidence of suicides, especially among the cotton growers of Vidarbha. However, to solve the problem, we need to address the roots of indebtedness. By just “waving off debts”, as thank-you banners put it, the government would only relieve symptoms of a deeper malaise.

What is the root of the problem in Vidarbha? Lack of irrigation water. Farmers have been undertaking the hazardous task of cotton cultivation on unirrigated soil. While India’s progressive integration with the global free trade regime has led to a decline in prices of many crops, including cotton, no corresponding increase in farm productivity has happened in Vidarbha that can neutralise the effect. With the cost of cultivation also rising, as prices of pesticides, seeds and labour go up, unirrigated cotton farming has been rendered unviable.

Vidarbha has had other problems, too, notably the alleged stepmotherly treatment accorded to this region by the state government ever since Maharashtra came into being. The sugarcane districts around Kolhapur, which cover only about 5% of the cropped area, receive a lion’s share of the irrigation water supplied in the state, while cotton, with a much greater coverage, is almost denied any. It is still not too late to enhance irrigation facilities for cotton through better conservation and efficiency in other uses.