Left questions WB’s claim of no farmer suicide in 2019

State government backs its claim with NCRB report

September 07, 2020 12:42 am | Updated 12:42 am IST - Kolkata

The Left parties and farmers’ associations have raised questions about the West Bengal government’s claim that the State did not witness a single occurrence of suicide by any farmer in 2019.

“West Bengal has not witnessed a single occurrence of suicide by any farmer in 2019, according to the NCRB Report-2019. The State government is committed towards overall socio-economic development of the families of all the farmers,” Egiye Bangla, the digital interface of the State government, tweeted on Saturday.

A number of Trinamool Congress leaders, including Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhay and MP Arpita Ghosh, tweeted the information from their official Twitter handles.

The latest report of the NCRB, titled Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI), 2019, points out that West Bengal recorded 12,665 cases of suicides, which is the third highest in the country after Maharashtra (18,916) and Tamil Nadu (13,493). West Bengal accounted for 9.1 % of all suicides in the country.

Kolkata, the capital, recorded 181 suicides, which brings the total number of suicides outside it to 12,484.

Leader of the Left Legislature Party in the West Bengal Assembly, Sujan Chakraborty, said it was next to impossible that over 12,400 people died in Bengal, outside Kolkata, and none of them was a farmer or agricultural labour.

‘Denial mode’

“We have been raising the issue of agrarian distress and farmer suicides in the Assembly but the State government is on a denial mode . All they are doing is hushing up figures of farmer suicides,” he said.

The CPI(M) MLA said that a list of farmers who had committed suicide in the Trinamool Congress regime had been released a number of times by the party.

While the number of farmers who died by suicide in 2019 is indicated as nil, the State accounted for highest of suicides where the causes were not known. West Bengal accounted for 1,930 cases in males and 941 cases in females where the reason for suicides was not known. The ADSI 2019 also states that certain States/Union Territories namely “West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Delhi UT, Lakshadweep and Puducherry reported zero suicides of farmers/cultivators as well as agricultural labourers.”

Secretary of the West Bengal unit of the All India Krishak Sabha, Amal Halder, said during September 2019, the AIKS had come up with a list of 217 farmers who had committed suicide during the regime of the Trinamool Congress beginning 2011.

“In the past one year there have been 15 to 20 more such deaths of farmers due to suicide. The State government’s claim is nothing but a lie,” Mr. Halder said. He claimed that when a farmer committed suicide, there was a lot of pressure on the family from the ruling party not to go public or to the media.

Meanwhile, the State recently launched a Krishak Bandhu scheme, where ₹2 lakh is given to any farmer (18 to 60 age-group) who dies. As per the information made public by the State Agriculture department, about 9,000 farmers have been benefited from it.

Anuradha Talwar from the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity said by denying the farmer suicides, the State government was not acknowledging the agrarian distress and thus could not make policy interventions required. “Data should be used for making policy interventions and not looked at from the prism of politics as to how the Opposition will use the data to target the government,” Ms. Talwar said.

Those in distress may call suicide prevention helpline: 033-24637401/24637432

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