Congress Pulls Up Government On Farmer Suicides

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday claimed that the latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) exposed the failure of the TRS government in preventing farmers' suicides and also proved that it was responsible for the agrarian crisis in the State.

"For the second consecutive year, the NCRB has placed Telangana in the second position in the nation in farmer suicides. This clearly shows that the State government tried to downplay the issue," Reddy said. Quoting the statistics from Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2015, which was released by the NCRB on Monday, he said that as many as 1,400 farmers including 42 agricultural workers in Telangana committed suicide in the year 2015. The figure was 1,347 (including 449 agricultural workers) in 2014. There was a 33% increase in number of farmers/cultivators who committed suicide, he added.

Reddy also said that of 1,358 farmers, as many as 632 or 46.5% committed suicide due to bankruptcy or indebtedness. Telangana was also on top in highest number of female farmer suicides, accounting for 34.7% of total cases in the country.

The TPCC chief said that the cause that drove farmers of Telangana to kill themselves exposed the tall and hollow claims of TRS government on development. "TRS government manhandled the drought situation. It failed to enumerate the losses and both State and Central governments failed to extend needed help to the affected farmers. The same negligence was adopted towards the farmers who lost their crops due to heavy rains. As many as 20 other farmers committed suicide due to this," he said.

The TPCC leader also pointed out that as per the NCRB report, poverty has driven 295 persons including 37 women in the State to suicide.

"The NCRB and other agencies gather these statistics to help the government in taking corrective measures so as to prevent their recurrence. TRS government must take these facts and figures seriously and immediately waive off entire dues of crop loan waiver scheme," he demanded.