Punjab saw one farmer suicide a day in 2018, says NCRB; grossly underreported, claim experts

Chandigarh Farm suicides are an emotive, political issue in Punjab, but it is usually difficult to put a figure on it. The latest report from the National Crime

Chandigarh Farm suicides are an emotive, political issue in Punjab, but it is usually difficult to put a figure on it. The latest report from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), released on Thursday, has said that in 2018, the year for which figures are available, 323 farmer and agricultural labourers ended their lives in the state. This translates into one suicide a day.

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Experts, however, say the number is grossly underreported and were of the view that the methodology followed to record the figure was also faulty.They added that the state government’s scheme of debt waiver for small and marginal farmers has also failed to rescue distressed farmers.

Lakhwinder Singh Gill, director of centre for development economic and innovation studies, Punjabi University, said, “Suicides of farmers who till their own lands, farmers who cultivated lands on lease and landless farmers was much higher than what the NCRB has reported, 202, 27 and 94, respectively. It is shocking that there are six women farmers on the list.” He added, “In a large number of cases, farmer suicides are not recorded as being related to debt.”

Kesar Singh Bhangoo, an economics department professor in Punjabi University, who has written a book on suicides in north India, said the number of farmers who took the drastic step in 2018 has to be higher. Farm economist and Bathinda Central University chancellor SS Johl told HT, “The debt waiver scheme that the Punjab government launched under the Congress has not helped farmers in distress.”

₹4,600-cr paid out as waiver

The government has, so far, paid ₹4,600 crore in waiver and ₹1,800 crore more would go to farmers, taking the total outlay of the scheme to ₹6,400 crore. In the watered-down scheme, different from what the Congress had promised in the manifesto, 5.5 lakh farmers (almost 33%) of 15 lakh in the state have been given the waiver.

During election campaigning, the promise was waiver of the entire loan; later, this was limited to marginal and small farmers, who own up to 2 hectare of agriculture land, and the waiver amount was capped at ₹2 lakh. The state government also announced a waiver of debt on landless farmers, but has not delivered due to a fund crunch.

“The most vulnerable category among the farming community is small and marginal farmers, but debt waiver has not helped,” Johl said, “The previous government had formed district-level debt reconciliation forums on my suggestion. Before these could function, the government changed and the idea fell through. These reconciliation forums will have acted as the last resort that debt-ridden farmers could approach.”