46 farmers' suicides in Orissa in two years

Sify.com, July 21, 2010
After being cornered by the Opposition political parties on several occasions for the past two years over the cases of recurring farmers' suicides in Orissa, the state government has finally come out with a report on the matter.


According to the report released in the state legislative assembly by Damodar Rout, the minister for agriculture and cooperation, 46 farmers have committed suicide in 2009-10 and in 2010-11 so far due to a host of reasons, prime among them includes the inability to repay crop loans.

Keonjhar, Sambalpur and Sundergarh districts have reported the most number of farmers' suicides in 2010-11 with six each. Four cases of farmers' suicides have been witnessed in Bargarh, three each in Puri and Balasore, two each in Cuttack, Ganjam and Bolangir and Nuapada districts and one each in the districts of Boudh, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Jagatsinghpur, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Korpaut, Mayurbhanj and Nabarangpur.

In most cases, the farmers have committed suicide by consuming poison after being unable to repay the crop loans. The farmers had availed crop loans from PSU banks like State Bank of India and UCO Bank and also from cooperative societies and micro-finance institutions like SKS Microfinance. The amount of crop loans availed by these farmers ranges from Rs 5000-Rs 45,000.

In a few cases, suicidal deaths have been triggered by mental imbalances arising out of family disputes.

Meanwhile, the land under cultivation has also seen a decline from 62.59 lakh hectares in 2000 to 61.80 hectares at present. Irrigation facility is available for 29.68 hectares of agricultural land.