Farmers in Osmanabad village send SOS as dry spell hits crops

Osmanabad, Aug 30 (PTI) About 200 farmers in Osmanabaddistrict in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region have sought aidfrom the government, failing which they said they should beallowed to commit suicide. The farmers from village Sarola, 11 km from here, fearlosing entire crop as the area did not receive enough rainfallfor the fourth year in a row, though the monsoon remainedsatisfactory elsewhere in the state. Vinod Bakale, president of Dhananjay Randive Mitra mandal,Sarola, submitted a memorandum to this effect to the districtcollector today. The area had a drought for the last three years, but thisyear initially there was a good rainfall, so the farmers tookloans for sowing operations. But the rains are playing truant for about a month nowand the farmers in the village fear losing the entire crop,Bakale said. "We are requesting the government to carry out a cropinspection immediately and provide us assistance or allow usto commit suicide en masse," said Prashant Randive, member ofthe group. PTI COR KRKKISSDM