KOZHIKODE: Agriculture Minister K P Mohanan will visit the crisis-hit Wayanad district and interact with farmers to take stock of the situation on Saturday. Talking to Express on Friday, Minister Mohanan said that he would call in families of farmers who had committed suicide and later would conduct a detailed discussion with farmers at a meeting to be held in Wayanad Collectorate.The Mminister informed over phone that he already submitted a detailed representation regarding the present agriculture crisis in the state to Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on Friday and demanded a special package for the state. “Pawar has promised to consider the matter and told that he would hold discussion with Chief Minister Oommen Chandy during his visit to Delhi on November 21,” K P Mohanan said.KPCC Team Meanwhile, the KPCC team, which visited Wayanad on Friday, confirmed that those committed suicides were farmers only and they had killed themselves due to financial crisis following crop failure. The team recommended that the government should give `1 lakh as interim relief for the families of the deceased farmers urgently.The KPCC team, comprising KPCC general secretaries M K Raghavan MP and U K Bhasi, secretary N Subramanyan and Karshaka Congress state president Lal Varghese Kalpakavadi, said the farmers should be given loans worth `100 crore through primary cooperative societies. The other suggestions by the committee include deploying an expert committee for a detailed study regarding agriculture crisis in Wayanad and implementation of a comprehensive package for uplift of farm sector in the district.The KPCC leaders said that they would recommend the government to convene a state level meeting of cooperative banks and take necessary measures to waive the interests of loans availed by the farmers. Besides, the KPCC team alleged that the LDF was trying to politicise the suicide of farmers and blamed the blemishes in functioning of the State Debt Relief Commission as the major reason for the present farm crisis in the state.The team also visited the houses of deceased farmers and interacted with families. Along with the declaration of moratorium for recovery measures, the government should also extend the period of repayment of loans, the team noted.
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