No data on farmer suicides, says centre

In a written statement given to the Rajya Sabha, central government said that there is no data on farmer suicides as state governments have not submitted a specific data to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) which is responsible for collecting and analyzing such crime data.

Minister of State (Home Affairs) G Kishan Reddy said that many states and union territories reported ‘nil’ data on suicide by farmers, agricultural laborers and cultivators. Due to this limited national data on causes of suicide in farming sector was untenable and not published separately, Reddy’s statement read.

Farmer suicides are rampant across India. NCRB data of 2019 shows that 10,281 farmers died by suicide. The figure was 10,357 in 2018. Farmer suicides account for 7.4 percent total suicides in India.

The central government had earlier told that they do not have a record of migrant deaths that happened during lockdown, which created an uproar amongst opposition parties. They criticized the government for putting in place an unplanned lockdown due to which thousands of migrants were left jobless and starving. The central government refused to take any action to reach out to them.

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