Accidental Death and Suicide report for 2016

News: The National Crime Records Bureau has released the Accidental Death and Suicide report for 2016

Facts:

Suicides in India

• In 2016, a decline was observed in the all-India rate of suicide (per lakh of population) from 10.6 in 2015 to 10.3 in 2016.
• The suicide rate in cities in 2016 was 13.0 as compared to the all-India suicide rate of 10.3 (per lakh of population).
• Major causes of suicides were family problems (not related to marriage) (29.2%) and illness (17.1%), marriage related issues (5.3%) and drug-abuse and alcoholic addiction (4.0%).

Farmer Suicides

• The number of farmer suicides in the country has plunged to 11,379 in 2016 from 12,360 in 2014 and 12,602 in 2015. This translates into 948 suicides every month, or 31 suicides every day in 2016
• Maharashtra witnessed a 20% dip from the previous year, however, it continued to be the top state with 2,550 of the 6,270 farmers’ suicides documented nationwide. Karnataka saw the second highest number of farmer suicides in 2016 at 2,079.
• While farmer suicides have dipped by about 21%, those by farm labourers have risen by 10%.
• A majority of the farmers who died by suicide in India were men while women accounted for only 8.6% of farmer suicides in the country.

Note: in 2016 edition, NCRB has not mentioned the reasons for the farmer suicides.

Accidental Deaths in India

• A total of 8,684 deaths in the country occurred due to causes attributable to forces of nature during the year 2016. 38.2% deaths due to ‘Lightning’, 15.4% deaths due to ‘Heat and Sun Stroke’ and 8.9 % deaths due to ‘flood’ were reported during the year 2016.
• A total of 4, 09,537 persons died in accidental deaths due to ‘other causes’ (not attributable to nature) during 2016.
• The major causes of accidental deaths were traffic accidents (43.4%), sudden deaths (10.2%), drowning (7.3%), poisoning (5.6%), falls (4.2%) and accidental fire (4.1%).

Additional Information:

About NCRB:

• The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an attached office of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The agency is responsible for collecting and analysing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL).