Mumbai: A Maharashtra-based farmer's advocacy group has dubbed the National Crime Records Bureau's recent report on farmer's suicide as "hoax" and claimed that it does not reflect the situation on the ground.
"The report of NCRB is nothing but a hoax because it has fabricated to show fewer deaths as the distress level on the ground is much higher on ground," Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) president Kishor Tiwari has alleged.
"Have major states like Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar not recorded any farmers' suicides in 2014," he questioned.
According to the 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2014' report released by the NCRB on Friday, the highest incidents of 2,568 farmers' suicides were in Maharashtra (45.5 per cent), followed by 898 suicides in Telangana (15.9 per cent) and 826 in Madhya Pradesh (14.6 per cent).
Tiwari said that NCRB has listed all landless tribal farmers and leasehold tenancy farmers as agricultural workers and rural suicides cases have been classified in others category, which has put question mark on the report's credibility.
"NCRB has deliberately divided the suicides under different heads. The report says 4,004 agriculture-related suicides were recorded in Maharashtra during 2014 and then subtracts agricultural workers from the number and gives 2,568 as the total figure.
For the first time, the government has admitted that the landless farmers are also dying," he said. The total number of farmers' suicides in Maharashtra should be 4,004, which is almost 1,000 more than the 2013 figure, he said.