Around 42,480 farmers and daily wagers have committed suicide in 2019. There has been an increase of around 6 per cent compared to the previous year, as the number of farmer’s suicide fell marginally while that of daily wagers rose by 8 per cent.
As per the data reported by the National Crime Records Bureau (NRCB) on inadvertent passing and suicides, around 10,281 farmers have committed suicide in 2019, down from 10,357 in 2018, while the number of daily wagers went up to 32,559 from 30,132.
In a report by the NCRB containing the most recent data said that the suicide rate in the strongly stressed cultivating part accounted for 7.4 per cent of the total suicide in the nation resulting in the demising of 5,957 farmers and 4,324 agricultural labourers.
The total number of suicides in the nation has increased from 1,34,516 in 2018 to 139,123 in 2019.
The NCRB has distributed elaborated information on farmer suicides, including the reasons behind it, in 2015. However, on Monday, a report was released by the bureau omitting these classifications and giving a break-in in terms of males and females.
In 2019, a total of 5,563 male farmers and 394 female farmers committed suicide while agricultural workers included 3,749 males and 575 females, as per the report. States and Union Territories like Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Delhi Lakshadweep and Pondicherry have reported zero cases of farmers and agricultural workers committing suicide.
29,092 males and 3,467 females are among the daily wage earners who have ended their lives.
According to the report by NCRB, the states and UTs that have shown an increment in the suicides in 2019 than 2018 were Bihar with 44.7%, Punjab with 37.5% Daman and Diu at 31.4%, Jharkhand at 25%, Uttarkhand with 22.6% and Andhra Pradesh at 21.5%, respectively.
Among cities, the suicide rate was higher (13.9) than the national rate (10.4), with Kollam in Kerela and Asansol in West Bengal reporting the highest suicides rate of 41.2 and 37.8 separately. “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,” said the report.
The highest percentage of suicide victims which is 23.3 per cent belonged to the educated group of up to matriculation while barely 3.7 per cent were graduates and above, the report added.
Image Credits- The Indian Express
