A recent study on farmers’ suicide in Punjab by Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has revealed that in six districts of the State, as many as 9,291 farmers have died by suicide between the years 2000-2018 and around 88% of the suicide cases were a fallout of farm-related debts.
The relatively higher number of debt-related suicides is all set to bring the issue of ‘farm loan debt waiver’ yet again into the spotlight in the near future as farmer outfits across the State are planning to corner the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on their long-pending demand to announce a complete farm loan debt waiver.
“Farmers have been demanding a complete loan waiver for long but successive governments have not paid any heed towards it. The current AAP government’s attitude towards farm loan waivers is also disappointing. If the government’s apathy towards farmers continued, then farmers of different outfits will join hands and start agitation against the State government. If by September 15, the government doesn’t take a decisive step on loan waiver, we will under the umbrella of Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) begin our struggle for loan waiver,” Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta (Dakaunda) told The Hindu on Sunday.
Purchasing crops at MSP
Sarvan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Punjab unit of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, said the Punjab government should ensure complete loan waiver for farmers and simultaneously work on a policy to make farming profitable, for which announcing and purchasing crops at Minimum Support Price (MSP) is the first important step that needs to be taken by the government.
“Farmers suicides across the State are only rising, the government should waive all outstanding loans, whether private or government loans, against the farmers and labourers. We were hoping some concrete step would be announced in this direction in the State budget, but there’s nothing. The government has not even given any road map surrounding steps for sustaining the agriculture sector. We are not pinning high hopes on the AAP government, but let’s wait for another 2-3 months; if no steps are initiated for loan waiver and other demands of farmers, we will be forced to start an agitation,” he said.
Sukhdev Singh Korikalan, general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), one of the largest outfits in Punjab, also firmly believes that it is important that the government should announce a complete loan waiver. “It’s the ill-conceived policies of Centre and State governments that have resulted in farmers falling into debt traps. The key reason for farmers getting into the debt trap is the lack of MSP on all crops. We want that MSP should be announced for all crops and also its purchase to be guaranteed,” he said.
Study in four phases
A joint study titled ‘Farmer Suicides in Punjab - Incidence, Causes, and Policy Suggestions’ - in the six districts of Punjab was carried out by the Department of Economics and Sociology, PAU, in four phases for the period 2000 to 2018 by Sukhpal Singh (principal economist), Manjeet Kaur (the principal agricultural economist) and H. S. Kingra (senior agricultural economist).
The first phase survey was carried out in Bathinda and Sangrur between 2000 and 2008 followed by another phase that included four districts - Barnala, Ludhiana, Mansa, and Moga for the period 2000–10. The third phase survey was conducted in 2016 in all the six districts for the period 2000–15. The fourth phase survey was undertaken in 2019, in which the cases of farmer deaths by suicide in all these six districts for the period 2016 to 2018 were studied.
The present study consolidates the total number of deaths by suicide of farmers reported in all the surveys from 2000 to 2018. All the villages falling in the jurisdiction of the six districts were covered in the door-to-door and village-to-village survey.
Grim situation
Pointing out that the high rate of suicides in the six districts of Punjab throws light on the grim situation of farmers in the State, the study notes in these six districts as many as 9,291 farmers died by suicide during 2000–18. The highest rate of suicides was found in Sangrur district with 2,506 reported suicide cases, followed by 2,098 suicides in Mansa, 1,956 in Bathinda, 1,126 in Barnala, 880 in Moga and 725 in Ludhiana. The number of suicide cases was the highest (630) in 2008 and declined thereafter. This decline in suicide cases may be an outcome of the “Debt Waiver Scheme” of the Union government initiated in 2008. Overall, about 88% of the farmers died by suicide due to heavy debt burden, said the study.
Professor Sukhpal said in the study, the suicide victims were classified into debt and non-debt category on the basis of the level of debt per acre of land, level of income of the family and assets (including land) owned and assets sold by the family to pay off the debt. “On the basis of this criterion, the observations of the study found that around 88% of the suicide cases fell in the debt category and the remaining about 12% occurred due to non-debt reasons. The farm size-wise distribution clearly depicts that the main reason for small farmer suicides was heavy debt burden, as over 89% of these victims were motivated by the heavy debt as compared with large farmers, where debt-related cases were around 57%. As the farm size increases, the proportion of suicide cases with heavy debt burden decreases. Around 43% of the large farmers died by suicide due to non-debt reasons,” he said.
