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Zero suicide case of farmers and agricultural labourers in Bengal from 2014 to 2019: Govt data

New Delhi: Centre has confirmed that no case of farmers' suicide and suicide of agricultural labourers has been registered from 2014 to 2019 from West Bengal. In an unstarred question on Friday Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Manas Bhunia asked the government that whether the Centre has the data over the numbers of farmers and agricultural labourers have committed suicide in different states due to debt burden and other factors from 2014 to 2019.

The Ministry Of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare replied with both the MHA and NCRB data shows that Maharashtra tops the list during the mentioned tenure. Interestingly from 2014 to October 2019, the state had a BJP ruled government. In his written reply, the agricultural minister Narendra Singh Tomar mentioned that "The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs compiles and disseminates information on suicides in its publication titled 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India' (ADSI). These Reports on suicides upto 2019 are available on its website."

According to the data, during 2014 and 2015, 857 and 1293 farmers committed suicide in Maharastra due to indebtedness and bankruptcy. Whereas 51 and 946 cases were registered from Karnataka in the respective years and Telangana recorded with 208 (in 2014) and 632 (in 2015) farmers' suicide cases.

But at this duration, 'Zero' cases were recorded from West Bengal, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

Whereas, the government data further shows that no agricultural labourers committed suicide from 2016 to 2019 in West Bengal.

"This is a big achievement due to the welfare and pro-people policies of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Her pro-farmer and pro-poor policies helped both the farmers and agricultural labourers in the state of West Bengal, the farm sector altogether," Manas Bhunia told the Millennium Post.

In a major move in the last year, the West Bengal government also launched a crop insurance scheme in collaboration with the Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AIC), for the 2019 Kharif season. The scheme called Bangla Shashya Bima (BSB). The crop insurance scheme is of free of cost for the farmers since the government pays the full premium.

The state government is also hopeful of bringing close to 60 lakh farmers under its flagship agriculture insurance scheme this year.

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