: Farmer Suicides: Teacher Helps Support 2500 Bereaved Families For 20 Years #IndiaNEWS #inspiring Puli Raju is a 48-year-old government school teacher from the Siddipet district of Telangana. Coming

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Farmer Suicides: Teacher Helps Support 2500 Bereaved Families For 20 Years #IndiaNEWS #inspiring
Puli Raju is a 48-year-old government school teacher from the Siddipet district of Telangana. Coming from an agricultural family, over the last 40 years, he has watched his family and friends battle the hardships of a water crisis, changing crop patterns, climate change, the struggle for minimum support price, and so on.
“My family owns 17 acres of land and has been privy to these issues for years. The situation came to a head when, after completing my postgraduation in economics around 1997, I started seeing how this situation was pushing farmers to suicide,� he tells The Better India.
So Raju, who is a native of Yetigadda Kistapur village, visited his journalist friend Ashok in 2000, who was then working with a local newspaper. “I had read the reports he had written on farmer suicides. We both discussed this concerning situation and the possibility of taking action to help farmers,� he adds.
Ashok suggested they prepare a record to identify the reasons under which farmers were taking their own lives.
Raju began work in 2002, and meticulously documented such incidents in his region. He traced the victims and visited the aggrieved families to offer them support by whatever means he could.
A ray of hope
Raju with one of the bereaved families in Telangana.
“I started reaching out to the families to understand their condition and how the farmer came to a point that forced him to take his own life. I attempted to understand their problems, the reasons behind them, their family background, and other aspects,� he says.
“In rural areas, men and women marry between the ages of 18 and 25. Once the head of the family or a farmer dies by suicide, the dynamics change. The woman becomes a widow at a young age. The children are often forced to drop out of school. The burden of managing the family and finances together falls upon the woman. To add to their woes, moneylenders and banks often pressure the woman for repayment. The lives of each family member become miserable,� he says.
He learned that the main reason for the piling of debts was the poor quality of farm produce that had coerced the farmers into a vicious cycle. Farm losses and poor income never allowed them a fair chance to recover from the financial burden. Debts piled as high as Rs 3 lakh to Rs 6 lakh.
In 2004, he found some discrepancies in the records registered with the district administration. “The number of farmer suicide cases found in the newspapers were more as against the records kept by the government department,� he says.
Raju approached concerned officials, only to find out that many of the deceased were not considered farmers.

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