There will never be a let up from our side in fighting for farmers. As a result we have found out how ‘Maha to divert 14,000 cr liter of its dam water quota to Gujarat’ and another major expose on massive delay and cost overruns in irrigation projects. Eventually, even a minister had to step down because of the ‘irrigation scam’. Jeetendra Ghadge was targeted for the expose by the government although it did not deter him from fighting for farmers. We believe that good irrigated farm land will help improve the standard of farmers’ lives and stop the spate of suicides, the reason why we shall continue to give importance to any work related irrigation of farm lands.
The then Revenue Minister had also announced to increase the compensation from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. Unfortunately it did not materialize. Although after the expose the rejection of compensation claims went down and the government also introduced insurance policies for the farmer. The continuous whistleblowing on the growing number of farmer suicide made media headlines and created a political storm in the Maharashtra. All political parties had to take serious notice of the growing crises and announced various schemes including farm loan waivers, which ultimately benefited lakhs of Farmers. Our work has definitely played a major role in extending the much-needed relief in some or the other way.
