Over 1,00,000 people committed suicide across the country in 2021, says NCRB report

New Delhi: Daily wage earners followed by self-employed persons, unemployed persons and people involved in the farming sector were the top categories of people who have committed suicide in 2021, a COVID-19 pandemic year. According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 1,64,033 people committed suicide in 2021 across the country.

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"Out of a total of 1,18,979 male suicides, the maximum suicides were committed by daily wage earners (37,751) followed by self-employed persons (18,803) and unemployed persons (11,724)," the report said. A total of 45,026 females committed suicide during this period in the country.

A total of 10,881 persons involved in the farming sector consisting of 5,318 farmers and cultivators and 5,563 agricultural labourers have committed suicides during 2021, accounting for 6.6 per cent of total suicide victims in the country. Out of 5,318 farmer and cultivator suicides, a total of 5,107 were males and 211 were females.

The majority of victims engaged in the farming sector were reported in Maharashtra (37.3 per cent), Karnataka (19.9 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (9.8 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (6.2 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (5.5 per cent). Out of 5,563 suicides committed by agricultural labourers in 2021, 5,121 were males and 442 were females.

The certain States and Union Territories namely, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry reported zero suicides of farmers and cultivators as well as agriculture labourers. Government servants accounted for 1.2 per cent (1,898) as compared to 7.0 per cent (11,431) from Private Sector Enterprises out of 1,64,033 total victims.

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Employees from Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) formed 1.5 per cent (2,541), whereas students and unemployed victims accounted for 8.0 per cent (13,089 victims) and 8.4 per cent (13,714 victims) of total suicides respectively. The self-employed category accounted for 12.3 per cent of total suicide victims (20,231 out of 1,64,033).

A total of 64.2 per cent (1,05,242) of suicide victims in 2021 were having annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh. 31.6 per cent (51,812) of suicide victims belong to the annual income group of Rs 1 lakh to less than Rs 5 lakh.