As many as 6,351 farmers/cultivators committed suicide in 2016 across India, or 17 every day, according to the latest home ministry data. Suicides declined 21% from 8,007, or 22 every day, in 2015, data show.
Suicides in the farming sector declined 10%–from 12,602 in 2015 to 11,370 in 2016–according to this reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) by Parshottam Rupala, minister of state for agriculture and farmer welfare, on March 20, 2018.
The minister’s reply, based on provisional data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a division of the