Seeing his sugarcanes standing still in the field with no avenues for a rewarding sale, a farmer named Om Pal Singh, 55, hangs himself to death from a tree in Muzaffarnagar’s Sisauli. Om Pal had not paid his sugarcane dues since February and was going through a financial crisis, says his family.
According to a source, the day he hanged himself, the Khatauli sugar mill declared to Om Pal that they would not accept sugarcane anymore because of the unpaid dues of around 25,000. While Om Pal was in dire need of money, and as he saw no other option, he finally chose to commit suicide.
The delay in payment to sugarcane farmers is a common problem in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Going by the laws, the mills are supposed to clear the payment within 14 days of delivery of crops or pay interest. The government has promised several times to look out for the better implementation of the law, but no such implementation has been done yet. Moreover, the pending dues of sugarcane farmers in the state have now reached a total of Rs 18,000 crore.
Ironically, Om Pal has committed suicide in Sisauli, where the legendary farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait had lived for years. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Tikait, with other farmers, had raised several demands and made the government bow down to them. After his demise in 2011, his sons took over the charge of the Bhartiya Kisan Union and Sirauli became BKU’s bastion.
