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Our Bureau,

Bangalore , Sept. 11

CONCERNED over the growing number of suicide by farmers, the Karnataka Government on Thursday decided to involve village panchayats in implementing the various relief packages announced earlier.

Briefing media persons about the decisions taken at a Cabinet meeting held today, Mr B.K. Chandrashekar, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, said the decision to empower the village panchayats was taken as a step towards tackling the problem at the local level for quicker follow-up measures. The panchayats will be asked to find out the problems of the farmers in the drought-hit areas and how they could be tackled as their proximity to the ground reality would help in taking more effective steps.

The Government also appealed to the Opposition parities not to politicise the issue. It sought their cooperation in discussing the issue of packages announced by the Government and on the reported deaths of farmers.

The Government also stressed on the need to verify the cause for deaths. The Minister said an instance in Mandya district where a post-mortem of the death of a woman had mentioned that it had taken place prior to her "hanging", has made it necessary to ensure the verification.

In its bid to stem distress sales by farmers, the Government also decided to ensure that prices of commodities such as maize, black soyabean, yellow soyabean and sunflower, would not be allowed to fall below the statutory minimum price (SMP), announced by the Centre.

The SMP of maize was fixed at Rs 505 per quintal while that of black soyabean at Rs 840, yellow soyabean at Rs 930 and sunflower at Rs 1,250. These crops were raised predominantly drought - hit region.

The Cabinet also discussed a draft Bill on protection of depositors cheated by firms offering varying rate of interest.

The Minister said a provision was being made to incorporate `fraudulent failure' on the part of the financial companies where in the declared interest, bonus or other services promised were not fulfilled. The Bill may come as an Ordinance as the winter session scheduled in November or December.

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