Agriculture
42,480 farmers, daily wagers died by suicide in 2019, reveals NCRB data
Srinagar: In a sharp increase of around 6 per cent from the previous year, close to 42,480 farmers and daily wagers died by suicide in 2019, a data revealed by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said.
According to the figures, 10,281 farmers died by suicide in 2019, down from 10,357 in 2018, whereas the figure for daily wagers went up to 32,559 from 30,132.
In the gravely strained farming sector, the suicide rate accounted for 7.4 per cent of the total suicides in the country, resulting in deaths of 5,957 farmers and 4,324 agricultural labourers, the NCRB carried in a report containing the latest data.
In 2019, a total of 5,563 male farmers and 394 female farmers died by suicide while agricultural labourers included 3,749 males and 575 females, the report carried.
States and Union Territories such as West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Delhi, Lakshadweep and Puducherry reported zero cases.
The NCRB had published elaborate data on farmer suicides, including the reasons for suicides in 2015. However, the report released by the bureau on Monday corrected these distinctions and instead gave details in terms of males and females.
Among daily wage earners who committed suicide, 29,092 were male and 3,467 female.
According to the NCRB, states and UTs which reported an increase in suicides in 2019 over 2018 were Bihar (44.7%), Punjab (37.5%), Daman & Diu (31.4%), Jharkhand (25.0%), Uttarakhand (22.6%) and Andhra Pradesh (21.5%).
The suicide rate in the cities (13.9) was higher than the national rate (10.4), with Kollam in Kerala and Asansol in West Bengal reporting the highest suicides rate of 41.2 and 37.8 respectively.
“Out of the megacities, the four metropolitan cities – Chennai (2,461), Delhi (2,423), Bengaluru (2,081) and Mumbai (1,229) have reported higher numbers of suicides.
These four cities together have reported almost 36.6 per cent of the total suicides reported from 53 megacities,” the report mentioned.
