Berhampur: Even as reports of farmers committing suicide in South Orissa following crop loss due to pest-attack are yet to sink in, another farmer ended his life after consuming pesticides Saturday.
He was identified as Alaya Jena (40), son of Narayan Jena of Erendra village under Sanakhemundi block in Ganjam district. Family members claimed Jena took the extreme step under debt-burden. He is now left behind with his widowed wife and two minor children and elderly parents.
According to family members, Jena had cultivated paddy in his two-acre farmland this Kharif season. He had taken loan of Rs 38,265 in his mother Tribeni Jena’s name from the local Khilingi Cooperative Society. He also had borrowed loans from private moneylenders in the village for agricultural purposes.
Contrary to his hopes of a bumper harvest, his standing crops were affected by pests. Bringing him huge loss, the pests completely devastated his crops. Since then, he was under mental pressure of repaying his loans.
In the absence of family members, he consumed pesticides kept at his house Friday evening. His wife returned home to find him withering in pain in the house verandah with forth coming out of his mouth.
With the help of locals, she admitted him to Adapur community health centre (CHC). After preliminary treatment, he was shifted to Berhampur-based MKCG Medical College and Hospital for further treatment as his condition worsened. However, he was declared brought dead by doctors.
A case of unnatural death was registered and the body was sent for post-mortem. The district deputy director of agriculture Manoj Kumar Behera along with district agriculture officer Ramchandra Patnaik and Sanakhemundi additional tehsildar Madhusmita Behera visited Jena’s village and took stock of the situation.
Other officials including the local RI and tehsil officials would visit the village Sunday and prepare a report of the pest-affected farms of Jena, the officials said. PNN