Bargarh: An assembly committee Thursday visited the house of farmer Khaenu Bagarti whose suicide had hugged headlines in the state.
The committee led by its chairman Pramila Mallick and comprising MLA Debesh Acharya, MLA Sukanta Kumar Nayak, MLA Muktikanta Mandal, MLA Basant Kumar Panda and MLA Prafulla Kumar Pangi talked to his widow Kalabati, son Ananta and villagers before visiting his farmland.
Narrating the cause that could have goaded him to take the drastic step, Bagarti’s family members and villagers said his paddy crop had been damaged due to unavailability of water after the lift irrigation project (deep bore well) had gone out of order.
After the failure of the paddy crop, he hoped the vegetable crops such as cauliflower and green chilli would save his bacon. But the distress sale proved to be the last straw, goading him to commit suicide by consuming pesticide.
The villagers handed over a memorandum to the committee demanding to not cause any disrespect to the departed soul by overdoing the inquiry
Their other demands included Rs 10 lakh compensation for the deceased’s kin, government service to one of his family members, pension to farmers, exemption of taxes from agricultural equipment, strengthening of irrigation facility, free power supply to agriculture, market linkage for vegetables and construction of cold storage and Rs 2,930 Minimum Support Price for paddy.
Later, the committee had a discussion with the collector and other officials at the collectorate’s conference hall. It directed the local block development officer to award an Indira Awas Yojana work order to the deceased’s wife.
Then agriculture minister Pradeep Maharathy’s statement in the House that Bagarti had killed himself due to a family tension, had created a stir in the state. PNN
