A Study on Agrarian Suicides in India with a Special Reference to Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

“Farmers in India born in debt growing in debt and dieing in debt” -Gurnal MirdhalThe above quotation is a mirror image of Indian farmers economic condition. The famous quotation was coined by Gurnal Mirdhal, a great economist, in his famous book 'Asian Drama', for decades before. From ancient days to present our primary occupation is agriculture which is suffering by a wicked problems. Nearly 69 per cent of population depends upon agriculture and contributes 27 per cent in GDP. After free from British rule, our rulers had given a great importance to the primary sector. In 1st plan, the majority of funds were allocated to primary sector by recognizing the importance of agriculture and its allied sectors. There was no change in the government attitude and importance towards agriculture and it continuing up to Pre-LPG (Liberalization, Gloabalisation and Privatization). After LPG , the priority of government has been shifted a great extent to industrial sector, particularly IT and IT enabled services from agriculture sector. This has been affected on agriculture at considerable rate. Due to the government policies and attitudes towards, the fortune of farmers have changed and forcefully put in suicidal way. In particular, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhaya Pradesh become graveyards to farmers. One side developed countries were encouraging their farmers with huge subsidies where as in Andhra Pradesh governments were implemented anti-agriculture policies during the period of 1997-2003. In addition to the above, the rainfall conditions were also very bad and ultimately leads to severe drought which claims some thousands of farmer lives. Some corners in Andhra Pradesh farmers were sold out their kidneys too face drought conditions.