Mallappa from Tattepalle, Vikarabad district, Telangana, called on Kisan Mitra helpline multiple times expressing anguish and distress, on 17th May 2018 evening around 5 PM, when things reached a state of desperation, he said he would commit suicide. Mallappa’s younger daughter’s treatment costs a lot of money while the elder daughter does not have a job. On the one hand the bank loan needs to be paid off, but on the other hand, he lacks capital for his sugarcane crop. With no drip irrigation and faulty land records were compounding his problems. All these problems were deeply disturbing him and his family. Mallappa’s story is just the tip of the iceberg.

Every few days we hear many distressing news of farmer suicides. What is causing farmers across rural belt in India to commit suicide? Is it the farm distress? Has agriculture become so unsustainable that farmers see no other way out? Are we there for our farmers? There are several such questions which troubled Center for Sustainable Agriculture(CSA) and they decided to take concrete action through Kisan Mitra Helpline.

How is Kisan Mitra helpline different from others?

There are several helplines where farmers can call in, but most of them are just related to technical agricultural questions. What our farmers need is someone who listens to their problems and helps them by directing them to the right people for a solution. Kisan Mitra helpline is just that and much more. Mr Harsha from Kisan Mitra’s core team says “Understanding rural distress and issues and attempting to solve them one issue at a time, as well as making wider policy corrections has shaped what Kisan Mitra is today”.

Kisan Mitra helpline centre

Kisan Mitra Helpline was set up to understand the problems faced by farmers of Vikarabad district in the state of Telangana and to reduce farmers distress. Vikarabad is one of the backward areas in Telangana state. This helpline was launched on the occasion of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Jayanti, on 14th April 2017 by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture with the support from the district administration, Vikarabad.

The district administration has made the Agriculture Department the nodal agency responsible for coordinating the complete process of this helpline with the help of all related departments at the district level. Centre for Sustainable Agriculture takes the lead in the running the Kisan Mitra helpline and handling of farmer’s distress calls. A team of five people have been appointed to manage the incoming calls, and one individual was appointed to oversee field-level coordination and interactions with farmers.

Talking to The Logical Indian, the Vikarabad district collector M/s Divya Devaraju explains the ideation and execution of Kisan Mitra. She says, “ Kisan Mitra is an outcome of a brainstorming session one day in Vikarabad Collectorate with different stakeholders working on farmer suicides. It was felt that we are often reacting to farmer’s problems after they occur. Distress doesn’t occur in a day. A small land record issue here, a bank loan issue there, availability of subsidised seed elsewhere are often left unattended to, which lead to piling up of issues and finally distress. Hence we thought can we proactively track the problems of farmers and solve them by taking to a logical conclusion. This was the birth of the idea of Kisan Mitra. Govt Order Ms 421 of the State Government in 2004 stipulated that there should be a farmer distress helpline in every collectorate. We simply took the mandatory requirement of the helpline and tried to make it more comprehensive. It is also an effort to make all stakeholder departments like revenue (land), agriculture, banking, electricity, agriculture marketing etc., aware of the issues of the farmers and work in tandem towards a solution.”

Vikarabad, collector Divta Devarajan interacting with one of the farmers family members who took his life.

Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Kisan Mitra’s team launched an awareness campaign which included flyers, posters, events such as suicide prevention week etc., while the agriculture department took up the initiative of wall writings in every mandal office to create and raise awareness among farmers and their family members. In addition to this, the field coordinator also visited many villages personally to interact with the community and distribute pamphlets and flyers about Kisan Mitra. The Kisan Mitra team and the district administration also reached out to various local print media outlets to reach a broader audience.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ‘https://web.archive.org/web/20200923222249/https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v3.0’; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

Getting tenant farmers their access to LEC cards has been a very important struggle,…