Govt. is misleading the Nation on Farmer suicides: VJAS

Govt. is misleading the Nation on Farmer suicides: VJAS

NAGPUR: November 30^th 2011

The claim of Indian Govt. that farmers Suicide by farmers have dropped drastically in the current year due to government initiatives is misleading as country is under severe agrarian crisis due to crop failure in major state suicide prone states Maharashtra,Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as there is severe cotton ,soybean and paddy crop failure reported and farm suicide spiral has restarted and ground situation very grim as debt and distress are forcing innocent farmers kill themselves, ,Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti informed in press note today.

“We have been documenting farmers suicides reported in vidarbha since 1997 and The National Crime Records Bureau –NCRB officially published actual figures of farmers suicides and we have noted that NCRB figure is three times our recorded figure but Minister of State for Agriculture Harish Rawat said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha has completely contradicted NCRB own record of farmers suicides and mislead nation this is very rubbish and unfortunate’ Tiwari added..

Here is official link of NCRB which gives official figure

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00820/Farm_Suicides__All__820598a.pdf

STATE	2010	2004
MAHARASHTRA	NCRB figure is 3141 Agri.Mimistry fig. 454	NCRB figure is 4147 Agri.Mimistry fig. 347
ANDHRA PRADESH	NCRB figure is 2525 Agri.Mimistry fig. 152	NCRB figure is 2666 Agri.Mimistry fig.1181
KARNATAKA	NCRB figure is 2585 Agri.Mimistry fig.138	NCRB figure is 1963 Agri.Mimistry fig. 114

It's official. The country has seen over a quarter of a million farmers’ suicides between 1995 and 2010. The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest report on ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India’ places the number for 2010 at 15,964 even after Govt. informs Indian parliament that in India during 2010, 657 farmers had taken their lives on this count, while in 2004 the toll was as high as .Agrarian at it’s peak and NCRB exposes that brings the cumulative 16-year total from 1995 — when the NCRB started recording farm suicide data — to 2,56,913, the worst-ever recorded wave of suicides of this kind in human history.,

As Andhra Pradesh Govt. is also misleading when they report that 42 farmers’ suicide in 2011 in comparison to 1,181 in 2004 and 152 in 2010,in fact In Andhra Pradesh, 95 farmers committed suicides in just six districts in one month during Oct – Nov 2011, as per compilation of news reports by Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA). ASHA conducted fact-finding visits to 20 families and found that all of them were due to agricultural reasons. “It is highly objectionable that the Government classifies suicides as ‘genuine’ and ‘not genuine’! In 2010, while Crime Records Bureau shows 2525 suicides of farmers, the AP Government has classified only 158 as “genuine”! When it comes to implementing the relief package meant for families of suicides victims, the Government machinery is geared towards ignoring or not supporting the families with designated ex-gratia, under political compulsions , Kiran Vissa of Association for India’s Development added from Hyderabad (Kiran Vissa, AID: 09701705743)

“Farm suicide is only figure that indicates serious agrarian crisis needs long term solution as it is apparent that the existing model of agriculture cannot continue. The current high-external-input model of farming has been one of the root causes for the increasing burden on farmers, given its unviable economics with spiraling costs, unmatched by adequate returns. This model of farming has also resulted in erosion and degradation of the natural resource base on which production has to rest for all time to come! The Government has to promote sustainable agriculture that will reduce costs of cultivation for farmers and reduce risks through diversity-based, agro-ecological approaches. A programmatic thrust along with appropriate and adequate support systems is required to spread sustainable agriculture like the CMSA programme in Andhra Pradesh is required immediately. In this context, the importance of grassroots farmers’ institutions, to make farming a collective enterprise in many ways, cannot be over-emphasized”, Kavitha Kuruganti, Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) informed from Bangalore .