The Central government on Monday, 21 September, informed the Parliament that it has no data on farmer suicides as several states have not submitted figures to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State (Home Affairs) G Kishan Reddy said that the NCRB is responsible for collecting and analysing crime data including suicides and this time the agency did not have any data.

‘As informed by NCRB many states and union territories had reported ‘Nil’ data on suicides by farmers, cultivators and agricultural labourers after several validations even while reporting suicides in other professions. Due to this limitation, national data on causes of suicide in farming sector was untenable and not published separately,’ Minister of State (Home Affairs) G Kishan Reddy said in a written statement to Rajya Sabha.

However, according to the available NCRB data on accidental deaths and suicides, 10,281 farmers committed suicide in 2019 while this number was 10,357 in 2018.

The suicide rate in the farming sector accounted for 7.4 per cent of the total suicides in the country – 5,957 farmers and 4,324 agricultural labourers, according to the NCRB report.

Last week, the centre faced immense backlash after the Union Labour Ministry said there is no data on migrants who lost their lives trying to reach home during the coronavirus lockdown. The ministry said the ‘question does not arise’ of compensating the families of the labourers as there was no data.

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