Centre claims 1,805 suicides by farmers, PAU puts it at 9,291

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Chandigarh, July 27

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar today told the Lok Sabha that 1,805 cases of farm suicides had been recorded by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) between 2000 and 2018.

He was replying to a question by Congress MP Suresh Narayan Dhanorkar during the monsoon session of Parliament.

Dhanorkar asked for details of suicides by farmers “in six districts of Punjab”, where 9,291 farmers died by suicide between 2000 and 2018, according to a study by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana.

BJP trying to downplay crisis

The BJP government is trying to downplay the poor condition of the farming community in the state. The figures quoted by the minister are being manipulated to downplay a stark reality. —Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, BKU leader

The AAP government finds the figures in the PAU’s report convincing. The government will get a comprehensive picture of the farm suicides before preparing an action plan. —Malwinder Singh Kang, AAP spokesperson

Tomar said: “As per the NCRB report, 1,805 farmers committed suicide during 2000-2018 in Punjab. The NCRB maintains gender-wise data only in terms of farmers/cultivators and agricultural labourers.”

The Congress MP asked for the reasons of farmer suicides and raised some key questions: one, whether or not the number of marginal and small farmers in the total deaths was high; two, whether 75 per cent of the farmers, who died by suicide, were in the 19-35 age group.

The PAU surveyed Sangrur, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Mansa, Moga and Barnala districts for its study, which was conducted by Prof Sukhpal Singh, Dr Manjeet Kaur and Dr HS Kingra of the Department of Economics and Sociology. It found that at least 77 per cent of famers, who ended their life, owned less than five acres of land.

BKU (Ugrahan) leader Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said, “The BJP government is trying to downplay the poor condition of the farming community in the state, which ushered in the Green Revolution. The figures quoted by the Union Minister are being manipulated to downplay a stark reality.”

AAP spokesperson Malwinder Singh Kang said, “The AAP government finds the figures in the PAU’s report convincing. The government will work on getting a comprehensive picture of the farmer suicides.”

State gets 8 ‘Rurban’ clusters

New Delhi: Punjab has been allocated eight clusters under the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission. Two clusters are in Bathinda. Amritsar, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Hoshiarpur, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur have one cluster each. This was stated by Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh on Wednesday in the Rajya Sabha in his written reply to a question asked by Raghav Chadha. tns