Hyderabad: A debt-ridden farmer from Gadwal district on Tuesday day attempted suicide outside the office of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
Mallesh, a farmer from Alur village, arrived in Hyderabad on Tuesday morning on a mission to meet the chief minister.
But when security personnel did not allow him to enter the CM’s camp office, Pragati Bhavan, Mallesh consumed a pesticide he had brought with him.
As he collapsed near Pragati Bhavan, police officers on security duty administered medical help before rushing him to Gandhi Hospital. Doctors termed his condition serious.
The farmer told reporters his efforts to seek help from the government had come to naught.
“I was running from pillar to post for the last three months but did not get any help,” he said.
Mallesh said he had written letters to the district collector as well as TRS MP K. Kavita but nothing came out of it.
Mallesh had a debt of Rs200,000 (Dh11,465), which he accumulated during five unsuccessful attempts to dig a bore well on his dry land.
The incident highlights the continuing problem of suicides by the debt-ridden and stressed farmers in Telangana.
The TRS government in the state says it has waived off farm loans amounting to Rs140 billion (Dh8 billion) over the last three years.
But the opposition alleges the government policy of waiving loans for any individual farmer only up to Rs100,000 has not helped the situation, and crop failures over the last three years have brought more farmers under the debt burden.
