India, Oct. 11 -- Amid drought, the Jalna administration has launched the "Satkari Samvad Sabha" initiative, deploying three-member teams across all eight talukas to interact with distressed farmers.

The teams, comprising an agriculture assistant, a talathi and a police patil, hold discussions in the presence of the village sarpanch. Each interaction lasts more than an hour, with teams covering the district's nearly six lakh farmers in 900 villages.

The initiative comes against the backdrop of a history of farmer suicides in Marathwada. Jalna alone has recorded 60 farmer suicides since January this year, attributed to agrarian distress and domestic problems.

While villagers have welcomed the outreach effort, they emphasise that counsel...