PEDDAPALLI: Worried over increasing debt, a 33-year-old man and his 30-year-old wife reportedly killed themselves by consuming pesticide at their residence in Nellipalle under Eklaspur grama panchayat of Manthani mandal. Their bodies were discovered by family members in the wee hours of Tuesday.
According to family members, the victims — Katuka Ashok, a tenant farmer, and Sangeetha — had leased to five-acre piece of agricultural land to grow paddy and cotton. However, due to heavy rains in the last few months and submergence of the field by the backwater of the Medigadda barrage built under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS), their entire crop was damaged.
Family members said the couple had not received any kind of financial assistance from the government and thus, resorted, to seeking loans from private moneylenders. However, as they had not received any compensation for the crop damage and had no way to recover the money they had invested, they took the decision to die by suicide, they added.
The couple is survived by two children, aged 4 and 5, respectively. Later in the day, Manthani MLA D Sridhar Babu visited their house and consoled their relatives. Alleging that the suicide was caused due to the mistakes of the State government, the Congress leader asked the authorities to extend assistance for the kin and the two children.
“It is unfortunate that tenant farmer suicides are continuing in ‘Golden Telangana’. The Kaleshwaram project has turned out to be a threat to farmers in the Manthani constituency,” he remarked.