AGRARIAN CRISIS - STEPS TO MEET IT OUT

Abstract

Indian agriculture today is under large crisis. Since 1995, more than 253,000 farmers had been reported to commit suicides in India, making the largest suicides in India. An attempt has been made in this paper to address the issue of farmers’ plight leading to suicide and measures to address the issue. The study was conducted in Delta region of Tamil Nadu. Case study approach was adopted to conduct the study. The results revealed that most of the victims owned land less than 2 ha. The absence of formal rural financial market had also led to the dependence on informal sources of credit with a greater interest burden. Heavy indebtedness had been leading to many social, economic and psychological problems among the farmers. There is widespread increase in frustration, depression, anxiety, irritability and social withdrawal among the farmers. Due to all this, the farmers were took extreme step of committing suicide. For upliftment of farmers there is a need for joint initiative by State Government, Central Government and financial institutions. Encouraging the farmers to adopt allied activities like dairy, fishery and poultry etc., with farming activities, arrangement of marketing/ forward linkages/ contract farming to sell their produce at remunerative price were the suggestions offered to prevent farmers from committing suicide.