BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government flatly denies any farmer suicide due to debt burdens and the State Farmers’ Commission delaying its final report on agrarian distress, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has exposed the bitter truth. At least 162 persons, who were engaged in farming and agriculture, ended their lives in 2010 pointing at the suicide trend in the State, according to the Crime in India 2010 statistics. Recurring drought, flood and unseasonal rains are leaving the crops more vulnerable than ever. Those from the farming community have taken to the extreme path. Farmer suicides in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh stand at a staggering 3,141, 2,585, 2,525 and 1,237 respectively, accounting for 60 per cent of such cases. And Orissa is catching up with death reports pouring in with dangerous frequency. Only on Thursday, when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was visiting Ganjam, Dibakar Sethi, a farmer of Digapahandi block’s Tikarpada, consumed pesticide. He was allegedly reeling under debt after suffering from crop loss last year. Suicide by farmers is just 3.8 per cent of the total cases that occurred in the State in 2010. At least 4,255 people had ended their lives in the State last year, registering a 2.5 per cent drop over 2009. Though the State did not report any family suicides in the farm sector, at least 17 women from the agricultural community took their lives, according to the NCRB report. The spiraling deaths, however, have not woken up the Government which had set up a Farmers’ Commission in January 2010 following public outrage over large-scale suicides, mostly from western Orissa, over non-payment of debts to private money-lenders, banks as well as micro-finance firms. The commission was to submit its report within six months, but managed an interim report in October last year and sought an extension. The final report is still awaited. Meanwhile, the NCRB report has brought an interesting fact to light.
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