There were more farmer suicides after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) waived Rs 60,000 crore ($13 billion) in farm loans in 2008, minister of state for agriculture Purushottam Rupala claimed in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) on July 25, 2017.

Data on farmer suicides from the National Crime Records Bureau prove Rupala is right.

Farmer suicides increased 7% a year after 2008, the year the UPA government announced the Rs 60,000 crore farm waiver, rising from 16,196 to 17,368 in 2009 after UPA returned to power for a second term.

NCRB started publishing detailed data on farmer suicides, including reasons and land holding status of farmers/cultivators who committed suicides, from 2015.

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Source: National Crime Records Bureau

The UPA-I government announced a Rs 60,000-crore debt waiver while presenting the budget for 2008-09; it was intended to help 30 million small and marginal farmers and 10 million other farmers.

While the loans of small and marginal farmers, disbursed till March 31, 2007, were to be waived, other farmers were to be given a 25% rebate on outstanding loans, if they paid the remaining 75%.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the government’s auditor, said several farmers who were not eligible were deemed eligible, while those who were did not get waivers, Business Standard reported on March 5, 2013.

Suicides by farmers in India increased 42%, while those by agricultural labourers declined 32% in 2015, a second consecutive drought year after 2014, IndiaSpend reported on January 2, 2017.

Indebtedness was listed as a primary reason for suicides by farmers (3,097), while “family problems” was the leading reason for suicides by farm workers (1,843).

The average landholding declined 20% over 15 years, from 1.41 hectare in 1995 to 1.15 hectare in 2010, Factly.in, a data journalism portal, reported in December 2015.

Over nine years to March 2017, the central and state governments waived Rs 88,988 crore ($13.9 billion) in loans to 48.6 million farmers, IndiaSpend reported on June 15, 2017.

As demands for farm-loan waivers grow across Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka--after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs 30,000 crore, respectively--India faces a cumulative loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore ($49.1 billion) or 2.6% of the country's gross domestic product in 2016-17

Factchecker Team