NEW DELHI: Farmer suicides declined by nearly 10% in 2016 as compared to a year earlier, though the rate at which farmers took their lives continued to be at least one every hour. Maharashtra continues to be at the top in recording the highest number of farmer suicides in India.Provisional figures for the year 2016, disclosed by agriculture ministry in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, show that the country recorded 11,370 farmers’ (farm labourers and cultivators) suicides as compared to 12,602 in 2015.The decline may be attributed to better rainfall in 2016 which witnessed record production of kharif (summer sown) crops. In contrast, 2015 was the second consecutive drought year after 2014. A shortfall of 10% or more of rainfall for the entire monsoon season - June to September - is considered a drought year.The figures, however, show that the benefit of record production could not probably lessen the distress of farm labourers as suicides among them increased from 4,595 in 2015 to 5,019 in 2016. The overall decline was seen due to decline in the number of suicides among cultivators - from 8,007 in 2015 to 6,351 in 2016.The other states at the top in terms of having the dubious distinction of recording higher number of farmers’ suicides include Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana. In fact, two states - Maharashtra (3,661) and Karnataka (2,079) - together account for more than 50% of the total farmers suicides in 2016.These are provisional figures, shared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) with the agriculture ministry. The bureau has, so far, not made the final figures public.Farm activists took the figures for 2016 with a pinch of salt. “Decline in number of farmers’ suicides can mainly be attributed to data manipulation and change in category (from farm related suicides to non-farm suicides). Getting the NCRB to abstain from releasing its report raised strong suspicion,” said Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture ( ASHA ).Out of 3,661 farmers’ suicides in Maharashtra, 2,550 were cultivators while remaining 1,111 were farm labourers. Similarly, in Karnataka, 1,212 cultivators and 867 farm labourers took their lives in the state.Flagging figures of West Bengal which reported ‘zero’ suicide in 2016, Kuruganti told TOI that those who worked on the ground had reported suicides of potato farmers in the state but the ministry figures show it as ‘nil’. “Where have those numbers gone”? she asked.Though the ministry has not specified causes behind suicides in 2016, the minister of state for agriculture Parshottam Rupala, in his written response, said the “bankruptcy or indebtedness and farming related issues” were reported as major causes of suicides among farmers/cultivators in 2015. Citing the NCRB report of 2015, he noted that family problems followed by illness were reported as major causes of suicides among agricultural labourers.Kuruganti said, “Even 11,370 farmers’ suicides in a single year, as disclosed by the ministry as the NCRB’s provisional figure, is quite a big number. It clearly shows that neither the Centre nor the states are serious about dealing with the farm distress”.