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Love affairs, impotency behind farmer suicides: Union minister
New Delhi, July 24
Dowry, love affairs and
impotency were among the reasons for the deaths of over 1,400 farmers in
2014, union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Friday.
"According
to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), causes of (farmer)
suicides include family problems, illness, drugs...dowry, love affairs
and impotency," he said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha to a
question on what had caused the death of so many farmers in the country.
The minister's reply, however, did not rule out debt as one of the reasons.
The
minister also cited NCRB data to show that the total number of suicides
committed by persons working in the farming or agriculture sector were
13,754, 11,772 and 5,650 in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively.
The
number of suicides by farmers due to agrarian distress, as reported by
the state governments, was 1,066, 890 and 1,400 during 2012, 2013 and
2014 respectively.
The figure up to June 2015 is 263, the reply said.
Meanwhile, the minister's reply triggered a storm with opposition parties accusing the government of "insensitivity".
Congress
vice president Rahul Gandhi demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi
ask his ministers to visit the houses of farmers to "see what is going
on".
Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal demanded an apology
from the minister, terming his remarks "irresponsible" while Communist
Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury dubbed as "ridiculous" the
reasons given for the farmers suicides while the ground reality, he
said, was different.
He said that the number of distress suicides
had gone up by 26 per cent in the last one year since the NDA alliance
came to power at the Centre and the reply was meant to "divert
attention" from the actual reasons for suicides.
Communist Party
of India leader D. Raja said the reply showed the government
"callousness" towards farmers' suicides, which occured due to
"unprecedented debt crisis" faced by them and demanded that the central
government take steps to come to their rescue.
Janata Dal-United
leader K.C. Tyagi said apart from insensitivity, the statement was an
"insult" to the country's farmers. He threatened to move a privilege
notice against the minister for "misleading" parliament.
Facing a
political storm, Radha Mohan Singh sought to downplay the controversy,
saying the answer was based on a NCRB report, which the government cited
in the replies.
Of the total 5,650 farmers who committed suicide
in 2014, maximum numbers were from Maharashtra, Telangana and
Chhattisgarh, official data revealed.
According to 'Accidental
Deaths and Suicides in India 2014' report released by the bureau, of the
5,650 farmers who committed suicide, 5,178 were men and 472 were women.
"The
highest 2,568 suicides by farmers were in Maharashtra (45.5 percent),
followed by 898 suicides in Telangana (15.9 percent) and 826 in Madhya
Pradesh (14.6 percent)," the data revealed.
"Telangana reported
the maximum cases of female farmers' suicides at 31.1 percent followed
closely by Madhya Pradesh (29.2 percent), and Maharashtra (14.1
percent)," it added.
Bankruptcy or indebtedness and family
problems were the major causes behind the suicides, accounting for 20.6
percent and 20.1 percent of the deaths respectively. Other causes
included crop failure (16.8 percent) and illness (13.2 percent).
The
report revealed that 65.75 percent of the farmers who committed suicide
were in the age group of 30 to 60. In all, 59 were below 18 years of
age.
Even though 15 people took their lives every hour in 2014,
the overall suicide figures witnessed a drop from 1,34,799 in 2013 to
1,31,666 in 2014, the NCRB said.
Here again, Maharashtra reported
the maximum suicides (16,307), followed closely by Tamil Nadu (16,122)
and West Bengal (14,310).
In addition, Bhopal reported a
significant increase in the number of suicides - from 384 in 2013 to
1,064 in 2014, an increase of 177 percent, while suicides declined by
78.7 percent in Kanpur - from 648 in 2013 to 138 in 2014.