Spate of farmer suicides continues unabated

The agriculture sector in the country is reeling under severe drought. The foodgrains production declined in 2015-16 compared to preceding five years. The average foodgrains production between 2010-11 and 2014-15 was 255.59 million tonnes, while in 2015-16, it has been estimated that 253.16 million tonnes. As on date, 266 districts in 11 states have been declared as drought-hit.

Due to the ongoing drought situation in 11 states, there is a rise in the number of farmer suicide cases in the country. As many as 116 farmers committed suicide due to agrarian reasons till March this year. The maximum number of cases was reported in Maharashtra, followed by Punjab and Telangana.

"More than 2,000 farmers' suicide cases were reported due to agrarian reasons in 2015 with highest number of 1,841 cases in Maharashtra alone," informed the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mohanbhai Kundariya, in the Lok Sabha recently.
As per the data, 57 cases of farmers' suicides were reported in Maharashtra on February 29 this year, while 56 farm labourers' suicide cases in Punjab were registered on March 11. In Telangana, there were three cases, Kundariya said in a written reply to the Lower House. In total, 116 farmers and labourers committed suicide in last three months due to agrarian reasons, the data showed.
According to Kundariya, the 11 States reeling under drought are Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan and Punjab. Out of the 11 States that have drought affected districts, more than 70% of the districts are affected in eight of these States.
Andhra Pradesh has 77% and Telangana has 70% drought-affected districts.
In terms of absolute numbers, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of drought affected districts (50) followed by Madhya Pradesh (46). More than 20 districts are affected by drought in five other states.
Except in Karnataka, districts in other states were declared drought affected during Kharif season. In Karnataka, 27 districts were declared as drought affected during Kharif out of which 12 were declared drought affected in Rabi as well. As per the available information, the overall deficiency in the rainfall in 2015-16 was 14% over the Long Period Average (LPA).
The State governments are primarily responsible for taking necessary relief measures during natural calamities like drought. For undertaking relief measures, funds are available with State government in the form of State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). SDRF is funded both by the State and the Central governments. Any Additional financial assistance over and above what is available with SDRF, is granted form the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for natural calamities of severe nature and is approved on the basis of the requests received from State governments. The financial assistance and relief to the victims of the calamities is to be given based on the revised norms by the Government of India.
In 2015-16, various States sought financial assistance from the NDRF. Close to Rs 13,500 crore has been approved by the NDRF for drought relief in 10 States affected by drought. Recently, an eminent journalist and Magsaysay awardee P Sainath opined that the data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) regarding farmer suicides in the country was "diluted" and did not present a true picture of the plight of farmers. He also pointed out that in most of the states; land is in the name of the male member. As a consequence, suicides committed by farm women, who perform between 60 and 67 per cent of the work, have not been included in the column for farmer suicides, but in the ‘others' column. Centre said it had approved Rs 12,773.34 crore relief package to the 10 States affected by drought during kharif season of 2015-16 crop year (July-June).

G Rajendera Kumar