Recently the government of India informed the Rajya Sabha that causes of suicides in the agricultural sector were not included in the NCRB report on accidental deaths and suicides in 2016, as the data shared by many states and Union territories was “untenable”.
In a written reply to the question of why NCRB, unlike its earlier reports, had omitted causes for farmers’ suicides in categories like farm distress, crop failure, loans, family problems, illness etc in its latest report, minister of state for home G Kishan Reddy shared that the organisation had informed that many states/ Union territories reported “nil” data on suicides by farmers/cultivators and agricultural labourers after several validations, even while reporting such incidents in other professions. “Due to this limitation, national data on causes of suicide in the farming sector is untenable and not published separately,” said Reddy.
But how is the government going to address the issue of farmers suicides increasing day by day?
Answering this, the minister stated that this sector is a ‘State’ subject, the state governments undertook the progress of perspective plans to make sure the effective implementation of the programmes/ schemes. “Government of India supplements the efforts of the state governments through various schemes/programmes for the welfare of the farmers by increasing production and remunerative returns to the farmers,” he added.