A staggering 3,228 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2015, the highest since 2001, according to data tabled in the Rajya Sabha on March 4, 2016 – that is almost nine farmers every day.
The number of suicides almost equal the number of people killed (3,477) by the Taliban in 2014, IndiaSpend had reported earlier.
Vidarbha and Marathwada, with 5.7 million farmers, accounted for 83 percent of all farmer suicides in Maharashtra in 2015.
Maharashtra is divided into five geographical regions, comprising six administrative divisions — Konkan, Pune, Nashik, Marathwada (Aurangabad) and Vidarbha (Amravati and Nagpur).
The Vidarbha region reported the most farmer suicides, 1,541, in 2015. Nagpur (362) and Amravati (1,179) witnessed the maximum farmer suicides in the Vidarbha region.
Vidarbha was followed by Aurangabad (1,130) that forms the Marathwada region.
As many as 89 farmers ended their lives in Marathwada in January this year. The Farmers Distress Management Task Force, appointed by the state government, blamed the deaths on the “collective failure of government officials”.