Daily wagers suicides in India has crossed the quarter mark for the first time, according to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) — one in four of the recorded 1,64,033 suicide victims during 2021 was a daily wage earner, Indian Express reported.
The report — “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India” — shows that daily wage earners remained the largest profession-wise group among suicide victims in 2021, accounting for 42,004 suicides (25.6 per cent).
In 2020, too, daily wage earners accounted for the highest share, with 37,666 (24.6 per cent) of the 1,53,052 recorded suicides in the country. In 2019, before the Covid outbreak, the share of daily wage earners was 23.4 per cent (32,563) of the recorded 1,39,123 suicides.
At the national level, the number of suicides increased by 7.17 per cent from the years 2020 to 2021. However, the number of suicides in the daily wage group rose by 11.52 per cent during this period.
The report lists the daily wage numbers separately from those of agricultural labourers, who have been grouped in a sub-category under the category of “Persons engaged in farming sector”.
According to the report, 10,881 suicides were recorded in the “Persons engaged in farming sector” group in 2021, including 5,318 under “farmer/cultivator” and 5,563 “agricultural labourers”.
From the nationwide number in 2021, the maximum of 22,207 suicides were recorded in Maharashtra, followed by Tamil Nadu (18,925), Madhya Pradesh (14,956), West Bengal (13,500) and Karnataka (13,056). Among Union Territories, Delhi recorded the highest number of 2,840 suicides.
“The States and UTs which have reported higher percentage increase in suicides in 2021 over 2020 were Telangana (26.2 per cent), UP (23.5 per cent), Puducherry (23.5 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (14.5 per cent), Kerala (12.3 per cent), Tamil Nadu (12.1 per cent), Maharashtra (11.5 per cent) and Manipur (11.4 per cent) while highest percentage decrease was reported in Lakshadweep (50.0 per cent), Uttarakhand (24.0 per cent), Jharkhand (15.0 per cent), Jammu Kashmir (13.9 per cent) and A & N Islands (11.7 per cent),” the report said.