[Reader-list] 17,060 farm suicides in one year

[Yousuf]

17,060 farm suicides in one year 

P. Sainath 

Uptrends in major States unchanged

Mumbai: Farm suicides in Maharashtra rose dramatically
in 2006, more than in any other part of the country.
The State saw 4,453 farmers’ suicides that year, over
a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060, according
to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its
report Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, 2006.
That is the worst figure recorded ‘in any year for any
State’ since the NCRB first began logging farm
suicides.

The previous worst — 4,147 in 2004 — was also in
Maharashtra. It has seen ‘36,428 farmers’ suicides’
since 1995, ‘in official count.’ ‘2006 is the latest
year for which data are available.’

The suicides in Maharashtra mark an increase of 527
over the 2005 figure. This was four and a half times
bigger than that in Andhra Pradesh, the next worst-hit
State, which saw a rise of 117 farm suicides over
2005. 

It was also more than twice the increase of 198 in
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh taken together. 

Worse, it means farmers accounted for half ‘the
increase’ in all suicides in Maharashtra in 2006.

Significantly, Maharashtra’s upward spike occurred in
the year when the relief packages of both the Prime
Minister and Chief Minister — worth Rs. 4,825 crore in
all — were being implemented in the Vidharbha region,
where suicides have been most intense. 

The NCRB figures show an unrelenting uptrend in what
can be termed the ‘SEZ’ or (Farmers) ‘Special
Elimination Zone’ States. These States, which account
for nearly two-thirds of all farm suicides in the
country, include Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh).


As a group, the ‘SEZ’ States saw an increase of 6.2
per cent in such deaths.

Among them, Maharashtra (4,453), Andhra Pradesh
(2,607) and Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh (2,858) show a
sharp upward spike. 

Karnataka (1,720) reports a decline. So though the
all-India numbers for 2006 reflect a very small
decline of 61 over the 2005 figure of 17,131, the
broad trends of the last decade continue. And the
trend of rapidly rising farm suicides, particularly
post-2001 in the ‘SEZ’ States, remains unchanged. 

So the minuscule decline in the figure for the country
as a whole marks no break from the dismal decade-long
trend.

NCRB data record 1,66,304 farmers’ suicides in a
decade since 1997. 

Of these, 78,737 occurred between 1997 and 2001. The
next five years — from 2002 to 2006 — proved worse,
seeing 87,567 farmers take their own lives. 

This means that on average, there has been one
farmer’s suicide every 30 minutes since 2002. 




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