FAMERS SUICIDE IN INDIA: REALITY, REASONS AND REMEDIES

Several studies have been conducted by the Government and social science organizations to analyse the agrarian crisis and farmers suicides. Based on my experience as District Development Manager (DDM) in District Betul of Madhya Pradesh, which incidentally is adjacent to, identified distress districts in Maharashtra. I have tried to summarize causes of suicides and suggested remedies in the paper. Central and State Government have announced the relief packages to the suicide affected families in Maharashtra. NABARD is the implementing agency of the package provided by Central Government. In the budget of 2008-09 Honourable Finance Minister has also announced massive write off to the tune of Rs.60000 crore of the outstanding loan of small & marginal farmers and OTS for other farmers. Statistics say nearly 4,00,000 farmers committed suicide in India between 1995 and 2018. In over two decades of The Statistics focused on data on farmers suicide to human grief, struggle, brave fight-backs and several complex, crumbling worlds within that world – things that I hope to show in this narrative. Around the mid 1990s, a liberalised and globalised economy engulfed great many unsuspecting farmers in problems that were beyond their comprehension, triggering suicides that surged in the early 2000s. In the cotton hinterland, I was waking up to life and living against the backdrop of premature deaths of young and old farmers and a new India taking shape in the new millennium. India's economy was now fuelled by sectors other than agriculture, like services.