New Delhi: As many as 5,650 farmers and 6,750 agricultural labourers committed suicides in 2014, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
As per the NCRB report for the years 2012 and 2013, the total number of suicides under the profession self-employment, farming or agriculture were 13,754 and 11,772, respectively.
For 2014, the NCRB delineated for the first time the number of suicides under two categories, farmers and agricultural labourers. However, it was not immediately clear whether the data for previous years included suicides committed by agriculture labourers or whether it is comparable with the 2014 data.
According to the NCRB report, the major causes of suicides by farmers are; bankruptcy or indebtedness, farming related issues (failure of crops, distress due to natural calamities, inability to sell produce), poverty, family problems, illness and other causes, Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He also informed that NCRB report for the year 2015 has not been published.
The minister said the Department of Agriculture has been designing and adopting various schemes and programmes based on National Policy on Farmers 2007.
In accordance with the guidelines of these schemes and programmes and the applicable pattern of fund sharing between Centre and the states, he added.
