In rural India, debt-suicide link suspect

The UPA regime's credit-oriented approach to addressing farmer woes marked by the incidence of suicides faces a big question mark.

The government's own figures fail to establish any conclusive link between suicides by farmers and indebtedness.

Among the four suicide-prone states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, Maharashtra registered the highest number of cases of suicide though it had the lowest percentage of farmer households in debt.

According to figures tabled in Parliament last week, Maharashtra registered 1,843 cases of suicide last year (till October), 577 in 2005 and 622 in 2004. Andhra Pradesh registered 104 cases last year (till November), 378 in 2005-06 and 1,126 in 2004-05. Last year's figures for Karnataka and Kerala are 71 (till November) and 98, respectively.

Maharashtra, however, had the lowest percentage of farmer households in debt -- 54.8 per cent of the estimated 6.6 million farmer households in the state. The highest percentage of indebted farmer households was in Andhra Pradesh -- 82 per cent of the estimated 6 million households. The figures were 64.4 per cent for Kerala and 61.6 per cent for Karnataka.

In terms of the total number of indebted farmer households, AP had the maximum of 4.94 million, compared with 3.60 million in Maharashtra.

And yet, just how much emphasis the government laid on credit availability to farmers was evident from its reply to BJP MP Ramdas Agarwal's question in Rajya Sabha regarding the UPA regime's roadmap to bring the farm sector out of its crisis.

"The government has already taken a number of initiatives, which include announcing an Agriculture Credit Policy to increase the flow of credit to the sector, Kisan Credit Card scheme, revamp of cooperative credit structure...," said the government on Friday.

Incidentally, the spurt in suicides by farmers also coincided with a significant increase in ground level agriculture credit flow. The credit flow increased by 25 per cent to Rs 86,981 crore in 2003-04, by 44 per cent in 2004-05 to Rs 125,309 crore, and by 44 per cent in 2005-06 to 180,486 crore.

The increased availability of loans did not have any significant bearing on agricultural production either, indicate official figures.

For instance, production of foodgrains increased by 22 per cent to 213 million tonnes in 2003-04. It decreased by 7 per cent to 198 million tonnes the next year. In 2005-06, it picked up by about 5 per cent, but the total figure of 208 million tonnes was lower than in 2003-04.