Farmers from Haryana who have sought permission to sell their organs
A group of farmers from Haryana have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a strange request. They want him to give them the go-ahead to sell their organs so they can pay off their debts. They even have a rate card: Rs 5 lakh for eyes and liver; Rs 10 lakh for a kidney or lung.
65-year-old Meher Singh from Kalal Majra village is one of them. He has no land in his name but owes a bank Rs 7 lakh in debt that he inherited from his father. Constant pressure to repay that a year after his wheat crop failed has pushed him to the edge.
"There is constant stress that the bank will turn up at my doorstep and display my picture as a defaulter. Nothing can be more insulting," he says.
Meher Singh says he's well aware of the domino effect of such unwanted publicity. "I won't be able to marry off my children. (As a defaulter) I will anyway die in jail, so why not sell my organs?"
Through RTI, farmers like him have confirmed what they've always known - that their input costs far exceed their income. For example, the input cost for producing a quintal of wheat is Rs 1613. The official minimum support price is only Rs 1350. So for every quintal of wheat they produce, these farmers suffer a loss of Rs.263. Similarly, for every quintal of rice they produce, they lose Rs. 447. The loss only worsens when added to crop failure.
A farmer from Kishanpura who was serving a jail term for defaulting on a cheque payment died in prison recently. The incident came as a shock to many here who say they would rather leave their families with dignity than with burden of debt, even if it meant selling their organs.
Till now, farmers in Haryana were hardly seen as victims. They were rather considered more as beneficiaries of the green revolution. But their desperate pleas and letters to the PM present a striking yet poignant irony.