Mumbai, June 25: While the Prime Minister’s scheduled visit this week has given Vidarbha’s debt-ridden farmers some hope, there’s been no ebb in suicides.

Ten farmers have killed themselves in the past three days, largely because they couldn’t repay loans.

The announcement of Manmohan Singh’s June 30-July 2 visit comes amid clear signs that the state’s special package for the farmers has failed.

The Prime Minister is expected to travel extensively through the villages of the worst-affected Amravati and Yavatmal districts.

As a prelude to Singh’s visit, Maharashtra governor S.M. Krishna toured Yavatmal and Wardha on Thursday and Friday. But while he was consoling farmer families chosen by the collectorate, four farmers in Yavatmal and one in Amravati ended their lives, and five more followed suit yesterday.

According to official figures, the spate of farmer suicides began in 2001 during chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s first stint in power.

A Tata Institute of Social Sciences survey (Tiss), carried out under Bombay High Court orders in response to a public interest litigation, counted 644 suicides between March 2001 and December 2004. Of this, 448 took place in Amravati.

The state’s Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government asked the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development and Research to conduct an independent study and, based on its findings, announced a special package of Rs 1,065 crore in December.

But the suicide rate, after a brief lull, rose sharply with 579 farmers killing themselves in the past 18 months.

The surveys identified several reasons for the suicides, such as inability to repay debts or to meet the rising costs of cultivation, repeated crop failures and lack of alternative or side jobs.

“The primary reason is the lack of proper agricultural policies. Unless the mismatch between the cost of production and cotton prices is resolved, the crisis will continue,” said Ajay Dandekar, who had led the TISS survey before quitting his job to float a pressure group that is fighting to resolve the problem.

Dandekar said the low import duty on cotton had impacted the price of cotton and needed to be increased.

“The Swaminath Commission had recommended that import duty be raised immediately, but the Centre didn’t implement it for two years. Even World Trade Organisation norms suggest that import duty on cotton should be hiked by 150 per cent.”

He alleged that 90 per cent of the bereaved farmer families haven’t received the Rs 1-lakh compensation.

The Prime Minister is likely to meet farmers’ representatives and personally hear the grievances of affected families, but experts like Dandekar are likely to stay away.

“We haven’t solicited an appointment with the Prime Minister. I think the Centre and the state are well aware of the problem. What is needed is political will to tackle it,” he said.