New Delhi, Nov 10 (The Quint): After an inordinate delay of more than two years, the Modi government has finally released the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data on farmer suicides in 2016.

In past reports, NCRB would list reasons behind the farmers’ suicides under categories such as crop failure, loans, farm distress, family problems, illnesses, etc. In the newly released data though, the NCRB has not mentioned the reasons behind the suicides.  A former NCRB official told The Indian Express, “Not only were the old categories retained but more sub-categorisation had been done to further diversify the data this time.

But it’s interesting to note that this data has not been published,” said a former NCRB official who was involved in the exercise.  Importantly, data from 2015 showed that around 80 percent of those farmers who killed themselves because of bankruptcy or debts, had taken loans from banks and registered micro-finance institutions – and not from money lenders.  The former official also said the suicide data report had been submitted as long as 18 months ago to the Home Ministry, which had sought a number of clarifications. “A key question was also whether NCRB needed to collect data on farmers’ suicides at all,” he added.