Farmers’ Suicide

The farmers’ suicide has emerged as an issue which keeps multiplying with the passage of time. According to a new report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which has been analysed by Madras Institute of Development Studies, 1.5 lakh farmers committed suicide across the country between 1997 and 2005. This real shocking trend has come from India’s most industrialised and probably most affluent state of Maharashtra. During the last nine years the farmers’ suicides in the state have reached to an unbelievable percentage of 105, while non-farmers suicides have, in fact, fallen by 2 per cent. The alarming level with which the suicide rates is increasing needs immediate redressal and a long-term vision and not just knee-jerk reactions, which the state and central governments tend to offer.