Madhya Pradesh will be observed as Information Technology Empowerment Year as 2013

In Madhya Pradesh, the year 2013 will be observed as Information Technology Empowerment Year. All MoUs signed in the IT sector will be implemented during the Year. Work will be undertaken for development of new IT parks in Bhopal and Indore. Electronic manufacturing hubs will be established at Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur. Rural women will be given IT training while maximum number of government officers and employees will be made IT-savvy. Besides this an IT cadre will be developed for making available skilled human resources from state to block levels. Work will be done on a mission mode in mobile governance sector so that good governance can be ensured at the lowest level.

Asia’s First Bio-Safety Level-IV Laboratory

India opened its first BIO-Safety Level –IV Laboratory in Pune. The lab has been established by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) with support from Department of Science & Technology. The BSL 4 Facility is dubbed to have the highest level of bio-safety lab in the world and will be the first of its kind in Asia and India. Under the aegis of ICMR, there are few Biosafety Laboratories and some of them are being upgraded to Level III and IV. A total of 16 new; 14 BSL-II and 2 BSL-III Laboratories have been set up for working on viral diseases and TB in the country.

India's first and unique cow sanctuary

India’s first and unique cow sanctuary will be established in Madhya Pradesh. State’s chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan laid the foundation stone of the Kamadhenu Cow Sanctuary at Salriya village in Susner tahsil of Shajapur district.Chief minister said that world's unique cow sanctuary will be made a cow pilgrimage centre. He also announced to set up a Cow Products Research Centre in the sanctuary. He said that a religious tourism circuit will be developed by interlinking Maa Bagulamukhi Mandir at Nalkhera, Pipalya Balaji Mandir at Soyat, Baijnath Mahadev Mandir at Agar and the cow sanctuary.

Sikkim to be 1st state to provide pucca houses to all citizens

Sikkim will soon be the first state in the country to provide 'pucca' houses to all its residents as it has launched a mega social housing mission of quality housing to families living in hutments.
 

Under the Rs 211.20 crore ambitious project, 6,000 poor household dwellers living in 'kutcha' houses will be given a single storey earthquake-resistant new 'pucca' house free of cost by the end of 2013.

The five-year project will solve the issue of homelessness among the poor in Sikkim permanently, project director of Chief Minister's Rural Housing Mission C C Wangdi said in a release.

Each spacious house will have a RCC structure with two bedrooms, a kitchen-cum-dinning room, a toilet and a verandah in front portion measuring a plinth area of 605 sq ft each.

The each owner-driven conversion of hutments to 'pucca' house would cost of Rs 3.50 lakh which will be constructed by the beneficiary through financial assistance to be received from the government in four instalments.

There will be no middle men or contractors and construction of each house is closely monitored by Block Rural House Construction Committees comprising both elected as well as official representatives, the release said.

All these 6,000 'katcha' house dwellers were identified through a rigorous baseline survey conducted by gram sabhas using transparent criteria followed by multiple level of supervision and cross checks by the Rural Management and Development Department.

The houses will be earthquake resistant and will be designed in such a way that the interiors get maximum sunlight and have air circulation.

As earth quake safety feature, foundation reinforcement, column size, plinth size of each house has been increased and additionally the GCI roof has been replaced by RCC slab roof with a three-feet parapet wall on all four sides.

The tiny northeastern state was hit by a major earthquake on 18^th September 2011 in which more than 100 people lost their lives.

The Sikkim government is providing 0.25 acre land to each landless person living below the poverty line (BPL) to construct the house.

The administration has completed the construction work on 1,137 houses so far while construction work on 3,029 houses will be completed by December next.

The construction work on remaining 1834 houses is under various stages of completion which will be completed during next financial year, Wangdi said.

Water Resources Minister calls for Adopting Meaningful Agenda in the Area of Water Sector Reform

The 14th National Conference of Water Resources/ Irrigation Ministers of States/ Union Territories was held in New Delhi on October 03. The following is the text of the inaugural address of Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs & Water Resources  Pawan Kumar Bansal: 

“This Conference is being held after a long gap of seven years. This Conference is a very important National Forum which offers a splendid opportunity for a meaningful dialogue on the critical issues relating to the water sector and the interventions needed to address them effectively. My colleague, Shri Vincent Pala has already drawn your attention towards the impending crisis on water resources in our country. 

Growing demand for water as result of population growth, urbanization and economic growth has resulted in tremendous pressure on water resources making India a water stressed country by international standards. The need to provide clean water for drinking & sanitation and the need to achieve food security are of paramount importance. Climate change which might complicate further the existing temporal and spatial variation in availability of water is a growing challenge. Extreme events like floods and droughts could occur more frequently affecting livelihood and food security. Injudicious inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral distribution of water amongst various categories of water users, low water use efficiency, unsystematic water resources planning and development, poor maintenance of irrigation systems and poor recovery of water charges are some of the major problems associated with the management of water resources in the country. 

e-Governance in Panchayats

Under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), the Ministry of Panchayati Raj has formulated a project namely e-Panchayat Mission Mode Project (MMP) that addresses core aspects of Panchayats’ functioning viz. Planning, Monitoring, Implementation, Budgeting, Accounting, Social Audit etc. with the aim to make their functioning more efficient, accountable and transparent. Under the e-Panchayat MMP, 11 Core Common Software Applications (reduced from initial 12 due to merger of two Applications) namely, PRIASoft, PlanPlus, National Panchayat Portal, Local Governance Directory, Area Profiler, ServicePlus, Asset Directory, ActionSoft, Social Audit, Trainings Management and GIS, collectively constitute the Panchayat Enterprise Suite (PES). These PES Applications are based on open source.

State Governments have been regularly advised to adopt these Applications. Four of these Applications namely PRIASoft, PlanPlus, National Panchayat Portal and Local Governance Directory have been adopted by States and can be accessed at http://accountingonline.gov.in, http://planningonline.gov.in, http://panchayat.gov.in and http://panchayatdirectory.gov.in respectively. Six other Applications (except GIS which is in development stage) were also launched on 24th April, 2012 on the occasion of National Panchayat Day and are in the process of adoption by the States. A Training Plan for six months has been shared with all States/UTs to train officials on PES Application during this year.

PRIASoft (web based Panchayat accounting software) and PlanPlus (web based participatory Planning software) are the two important Applications under e-Panchayat MMP that foster transparency and accountability in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). PRIASoft has been adopted by sixteen States and one Union Territory upto 2011-12. States like Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka having their own accounting softwares, have also been advised to map their respective software Applications with PRIASoft. PlanPlus has been adopted by twenty-three States upto 2011-12.

M/o Panchayati Raj deals only with State Governments and has been regularly advising for increased adoption of these Applications which would enhance transparency, accountability and credibility of the Panchayati Raj Institutions.

Sanitation coverage in rural areas witness high increase

The sanitation coverage in rural areas of the country was 21.9% as per census 2001 that has gone up to 32.7% in rural areas of the country as per census 2011 after accounting for the increase in number of households due to increase in population and fragmentation of households etc. The Minister for Rural Development Shri Jairam Ramesh said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha that sanitation and hygiene situation in South Asia remains at a crisis point. He said, the Government administers Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA), a comprehensive program to facilitate States to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with the main objective of eradicating the practice of open defecation and ensuring clean environment. The Minister said, to achieve the vision of Nirmal Bharat by 2022 with all Gram Panchayats in the country attaining Nirmal status, the budget provision under NBA for the first year of X11 plan, 2012-13, has been increased to Rs.3500 crore from Rs.1500 crores provided in the last year of the 11th plan 2011-12. Shri Ramesh added that the component of Solid and Liquid Waste Management has been strengthened and conjoint approach with National Rural Drinking Water Programme has been adopted to address the issue of availability of water for sanitation facilities.

Target for Highway Development

There are fifteen (15) National Highways (NHs) viz NH-58, 72, 72A, 72B, 73, 74, 87, 87(Extn.), 94, 108, 109, 119, 121, 123 and 125 with an aggregate length of 2149 Kms in the State of Uttarakhand.

This Ministry is primarily responsible for the development and maintenance of National Highways and is not responsible for maintenance of State roads including State Highways. Allocation of Rs. 200.97 crore was made from 2009 to 2012 for maintenance of NHs against which an expenditure of Rs. 150.45 crore has been incurred.

Expansion of National Highways network is a continuous process and is taken up from time to time depending upon the requirement of connectivity, inter se priority and availability of funds.

Natural Gas Pipeline of over 11,000 KM Length laid in the Country

The Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri R.P.N. Singh informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply today that more than 11,000 km of cross-country gas pipelines have been laid so far for connecting the consumption centers for supply of gas. Another 14,000 km of pipelines infrastructure is under various stages of implementation. The development of pipeline infrastructure is an ongoing process which will progress with increase in demand of natural gas, the Minister added.

He further stated that Government has initiated multi-pronged measures to increase availability of natural gas in the country. They are as follows:-

I. Intensification of domestic Exploration & Production (E&P) activities through New exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) rounds,

II. Coal Bed Methane (CBM),

III. Shale Gas,

IV. Gas Hydrates,

V. Import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from various countries, and

VI. Transnational pipelines, viz., Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India(TAPI) pipeline and Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline.

15 Mega Food Parks at Various Stages of Implementation

There are 15 Mega Food Parks existing in the country at various stages of implementation. The Mega Food Park projects aim at developing adequate infrastructure facilities from farm gate to retailer outlet and effective supply chain management. The projects are expected to provide remunerative price to the farmers, minimize wastage of agri. produce and generate sufficient employment in the agriculture sector. On successful implementation, it is expected that each project on an average will have around 30-35 food processing units with a collective investment of Rs. 250 crores that would eventually lead to annual turnover of about Rs. 450-500 crores and creation of direct and indirect employment to the extent of about 30,000.

Parliamentary Panel on Agriculture recommended to ban GM Food Crops

In a major setback to the production of genetically modified (GM) foods in the country, a parliamentary panel on agriculture asked the government to ban all field trials of GM crops until it develops until it develops a better system of monitoring and oversight.
In the 389-page report submitted in the parliament on 9 August 2012, the panel also demanded a complete probe into how permission was granted in 2009 for the commercialisation of  Bt brinjal (also known as aubergine, or eggplant). Bt Brinjal was developed by Pune-based Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Company) in a joint venture with US seed giant Monsanto.
The Genetic Engeneering Appraisal Committee had cleared the commercialization of Bt Brinjal on 14 October 2009, though soon after its clearance it was caught amidst bitter controversies ranging from its environmental impacts to ethical concerns such as corporate control of the food supply and intellectual property rights. Bt cotton was the only GM crop before Bt Brinjal which had got clearance for commercialization.

Kishore Chandra Deo Inaugurates Silver Jubilee Celebration TRIFED

V. Kishore Chandra Deo, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj inaugurated the Silver Jubilee celebration of the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) here today. In his inaugural address, Sheri Deo said there is a need to concentrate on Minor Forest Produce, termed as Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) by TRIFED. The NTFP has significant economic and social value for the forest dwellers. He said that Central Government has enacted two major legislations, namely PESA and FRA to empower the forest dwellers. He further that said the Minimum Support Price Scheme for NTFPs is in the offing and Central Government will provide financial support for procurement, creation of enabling infrastructure, training for sustainable harvesting and also provide subsidy to State level agencies in case they incur any loss in the transaction so that they do not hesitate from procurement of NTFPs from tribals, a major source of income for tribals. The TRIFED has an important role as the nodal agency for implementation of this scheme, in order to translate the objectives of these Acts into reality. He said Central Govt. will provide financial support for procurement, creation of enabling infrastructure, training for sustainable harvesting and also provide subsidy to State level agencies in case they incur any loss in the transaction so that they do not hesitate from procurement of NTFPs from tribals, a major source of income for tribals.

The Minister said the Silver Jubilee function of TRIFED’ provides us an opportunity to take stock of the situation, ponder over the future challenges and redefine the role for the organization in the rapidly changing environment. He said that TRIFED was started in August1987 with the main objective of providing marketing support for the tribal products so that remunerative prices can be ensured to the tribals for the products collected/cultivated by them. TRIFED’s effort to build “TRIBES INDIA” as a brand needs special mention as it provided tribal handicrafts and textile products a distinct identity in the market. The TRIFED has been consistently growing in terms of sales and from a single store in 1999 at Delhi now TRIBES India network has covered 16 States with 26 stores and still expanding. The Minister expressed his support to TRIFED and expressed the hope that TRIFED would emerge as a big and successful organization.

Shri Mahadeo Singh Khandela, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Dr. Rameswar Oraon, Chairman, ST Comission, Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary of the Ministry and Jiji Thomson, MD, TRIFED were also present in the function. Eminent Gandhian, Dr. Abhay Basng delivered a lecture on tribal issue on the occasion.

Keshubhai launches new political party Gujarat Parivartan Party'

Former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel  launched a new political outfit 'Gujarat Parivartan Party' ahead of the assembly elections, marking a decisive phase in his campaign against his bete noire and successor Narendra Modi.

Announcing the launch of the party that could signal a realignment of anti-Modi forces, 83-year-old Patel, a known baiter of the BJP strongman, said his party GPP would contest all the 182 seats in Gujarat assembly elections due to be held by the end of this year.

ITBP team has become the first Indian mountaineering team

An ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) team has become the first Indian mountaineering team to ski down the Mount Everest. The eight-member team had reached the summit on May 19, 2012.

Saraighat Bridge over Brahmaputra

The rail-cum-road Saraighat Bridge over Brahmaputra connects the North-East with rest of India. It was the first bridge to be built across the might river and was inaugurated in June 1963 by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. The name Saraighat refers to a historic battleground where Ahom General Lachit Borphukon defeated the invading Mughal army in fiercely fought battle in 1671.

Delhi Government decided to increase the Number of Districts in Delhi from 9 to 11

To facilitate the speedy justice and efficient administration, the Delhi government on 16 July 2012 decided in-principle to divide Delhi into 11 sessions and revenue districts. The existing number of district is nine that includes, Central, North, South, East, Northeast, Southwest, New Delhi, Northwest and West Delhi.
After reshaping the boundaries of existing districts there will be 11 districts including, Central, East, West, North, South, Najafgarh, Saraswati Vihar, Kalkaji, Preet Vihar, Seelampur and New Delhi. The Northeast, Northwest and Southwest districts will cease to exist while, five new districts namely Seelampur, Gandhi Nagar, Saraswati Vihar, Najafgadh and Kalka Ji will come into existence.
The government’s move came following law department sent a proposal to the Delhi government to divide the capital into 11 districts so that the work of the judiciary and the revenue department gets divided according to their respective areas.
Under the present structure, the work of the trial courts is divided into nine districts for the civil cases, while, there is only one chief metropolitan magistrate for criminal jurisdiction. For revenue department, there are nine districts along with 27 sub-divisions.

World’s Tallest Chenab Rail Bridge

The world’s tallest rail bridge over Chenab River in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district being constructed by Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL), a Central Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of Railways, is likely to be ready by 2016.   This bridge will be on the Udhampur – Srinagar – Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project which is a national project to provide rail connectivity to the beautiful valley of Kashmir. Konkan Railway has taken up the construction of part of USBRL project from Katra to Dharam in December 2002.  Chenab Bridge, perhaps the most challenging project, is to be built at the height of 359 metres (height of Qutab Minar is 72 metres and of Eiffel Tower is 324 metres).  Chenab Bridge is having the central span of 457 metres. When constructed this bridge will quality for world record for being the tallest rail bridge from the river bed. Currently the world’s tallest rail bridge is located over France’s Tam River with its tallest pillar rising 340 metres, with the actual height where the train runs on the bridge being 300 metres. The design of bridge also takes care of blast load, which is internationally an unique feature.  The painting scheme for this bridge is designed for 35 years of service life so that during service life of 120 years, only 3 times repainting will have to be done.

For construction of Arch portion of the bridge over the river, a novel method of construction using the cable car is designed and under construction. This cable car runs on 54mm cables laid across the river valley and connected through 127 metre high pylons (towers) on either side of river. The consumption of structural steel for this project is very huge. The construction of Chenab Bridge will comprises of earthwork in excavation for construction of foundations, over 46,000cum of concreting, 3600 tonnes of reinforcement  steel and 25,000 tonnes of structural steel (an equivalent to volume of a 54 story building on a football ground size plot). Fabrication of the steel structures involves very high degree of precision and quality wielding using latest wielding technologies.

Construction of Railway Bridge over river Chenab bridging steep banks on Bakkal (Katra) and Kauri (Srinagar) ends respectively, without causing any hindrance to the water flow is a challenge. Approach roads measuring a total length of about 5 kilometres are being constructed in very difficult terrain to reach to main span foundations.  To ensure stability of the foundation cut profiles, the slopes have been suitably designed and will be protected by means of rock bolting and shotcreting. From Katra side, the railway  line comes out of 5.9 kilometre long tunnel and after moving over other bridges comes to a station called Salai-A and after moving over Chenab bridge comes to a halt  station called Salai-B. These two stations are meant to serve the local population of either side of the river.

The bridge is designed for 266 kmph of wind velocity and wind tunnel simulation test for the same was conducted in Denmark. However, trains will not be permitted to travel over the bridge when wind velocity exceeds 90 kmph.  Suitable instrumentation like anemometers for measuring wind velocity, accelerometers  for measuring ground acceleration in the event of an earthquake, temperature monitor etc., will be installed at critical locations to generate alarm to the adjacent stations in case of danger. Various geotechnical investigations are carried out for this bridge like soil boring done along the alignment of the bridge, plate load test and shear load test conducted inside drift (a tunnel like cavity made for investigation) at foundation level of Arch.

The section from Katra to Dharam being constructed by Konkan Railway is 70 kilometres in length. It comprises of 59.457 kilometres (85%) of route in tunnels, 6.6 kilometres (9%) of route on bridges and balance 6% of route in cutting and embankments. To make access to these sites, Konkan Railway has to make 166 kilometres of project roads including road tunnels and many temporary Bailey bridges.

The work was pended in July 2008 for review of alignment and after review works were restarted in September 2009.  At present, Final Location Survey for 28 km is in progress taking into account changed ruling gradient of 1 in 80.  The target for completion of project is December 2017.  To expeditiously execute the project Konkan Railway has set up Project Head Office at Jammu.  Its project camps are located at Reasi, Kauri, Dugga and Sangaldhan.  KRCL has mobilized a team of about 240 staff and engineers for taking this project ahead.  The construction machinery, plant, equipments, materials, technicians, skilled and un-skilled manpower is arranged by KRCL’s construction contractors.  For design support, various National and International agencies have been engaged.  The construction of 166 km of approach/feeder roads through this inaccessible terrain is a challenging job to take up the railway construction works. 

Konkan Railway has the experience of construction of 740 km of Railway route length between Roha to Thokur (near Mangalore).  This route has 91 tunnels aggregating to 85 km, with Karbude tunnel of 6.5 km which is the longest transport tunnel in the country.  Over Konkan Railway route 179 major bridges aggregating to 19.8 km of bridge length have been constructed.  The longest bridge is across Sharavati river which is more than 2 km long.

Maharashtra tops list of number of foreign tourist visits in 2011

According to the latest report from the union ministry of tourism, Maharashtra tops the list of number of foreign tourist visits, followed by Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. While Maharashtra received 4.8 million tourists, Tamil Nadu welcomed 3.4 million tourists and New Delhi played host to 2.8 million foreigners.

The statistics releases by the union ministry of tourism for 2011 says the number of foreign tourist visits (FTV) to Indian states/union territories was 19.5 million as compared to 17.9 million in 2010 and 14.4 million in 2009.

This year the number of FTVs registered a growth of 8.85% over 2010 as compared to a growth of 24.6% in 2010 over 2009.

"Our campaign, 'Maharashtra Unlimited' has been successful in reaching out to the globe. We lay emphasis on leisure tours, beach tours, rural tourism and heritage tourism among others. As Maharashtra is an all-season destination we would like to retain these tourists for more number of days," said Maharashtra tourism minister Chhagan Bhujbal.

The report says that the contribution of the top 10 states was about 90.1% to the total number of foreign tourists in the country for 2011.

Odisha to raise women’s quota in urban bodies

In a bid to further empower women, the Odisha government  decided to raise their quota to 50 per cent in Urban Local Bodies.

“Our government has decided to enhance the representation of women in ULBs from the present level of 33 per cent to 50 per cent,” the Chief Minister Mr Naveen Patnaik told.

Saying that the decision would have a “far reaching” effect, Mr Patnaik claimed that the state government and the ruling BJD were committed to the welfare of women in Odisha.

The state government’s decision to raise the women’s quota to 50 per cent in ULBs came after it provided 50 per cent reservation for female candidates in the three-tier panchayat elections held early this year.

The decision assumed significance as it came ahead of ensuing ULB polls for municipal corporations, municipalities and notified area councils (NAC) scheduled to be held in 2013 and the general elections slated for 2014.

Farm suicides rise in Maharashtra, State still leads the list

With a figure of at least 14,027 in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the total number of farm suicides since 1995 has touched 2,70, 940. The State of Maharashtra shows a rise in numbers yet again, logging 3,337 against 3,141 farmers’ suicides the previous year (and 2,872 in 2009). This, despite heavy massaging of data at the State level for years now, even re-defining of the term “farmer” itself. And despite an orchestrated (and expensive) campaign in the media and other forums by governments and major seed corporations to show that their efforts had made things a lot better. Maharashtra remains the worst single State for farm suicides for over a decade now.

The total number of farmers who have taken their own lives in Maharashtra since 1995 is closing in on 54,000. Of these 33,752 have occurred in nine years since 2003, at an annual average of 3,750. The figure for 1995-2002 was 20,066 at an average of 2,508. Significantly, the rise is occurring even as the farm population is shrinking a fact broadly true across the country. And more so in Maharashtra which has been urbanising more rapidly than most. The rising-suicides-shrinking-population equation suggests a major intensification of the pressures on the community. A better understanding of that, though, awaits the new farm population figures of the 2011 Census — not expected for many months from now. At present both national and State-wise farm suicide ratios (the number of farmers committing suicide per 100,000 farmers) are based on very outdated 2001 Census numbers. 

Big five States

The 2011 total gets dicey with Chhattisgarh’s posting a figure of zero farm suicides. A zero figure should be great news. Except that Chhattisgarh had 7,777 farm suicides in the preceding five years, including 1,126 in 2010. It has been amongst the very worst States for such deaths for several years. The share of the worst (Big 5) states (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh) as a percentage of total farm suicides, is now around 64 per cent. Even with Chhattisgarh showing a ‘zero’ figure, that is not much lower than the preceding five-year average for the Big 5 of close to 66 per cent. It could be that Chhattisgarh’s figures have simply not made it to the NCRB in time. Otherwise, it means that the State is in fact a late entrant to the numbers massage parlour. Others have been doing it for years. Maharashtra since 2007, following the Prime Minister’s visit to Vidarbha. Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar has strictly avoided using NCRB farm data in Parliament since 2008 because the data are unpleasant. (The union government however quotes the NCRB for all other categories). Now, governments are deep into fiddling the data that goes from the States to the NCRB.

With the Big 5 also staring drought in the face, what numbers the coming season will throw up is most worrying. Within Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada have already been under great stress (which in turn pushes officials to step up data fiddles). If the numbers are re-calculated using the annual average of Chhattisgarh in the past five years, the national total of farm suicides for 2011 would be 15,582. And the share of the Big 5 (at 10,524) would be nearly 68 per cent. That’s higher than the five-year average for those States, too. In 1995, the first time the NCRB tabulated farm suicide data, the Big 5 accounted for 56.04 per cent of all farm suicides.

In 2011, five States showed increases of over 50 farm suicides compared to 2010. These included Gujarat (55), Haryana (87), Madhya Pradesh (89), Tamil Nadu (82). Maharashtra alone showed a rise of 196. Nine States showed declines exceeding 50 farm suicides, of which Karnataka (485) and Andhra Pradesh (319) and West Bengal (186) claimed the biggest falls. That, of course, after Chhattisgarh, which claimed a decline of 1,126, with its zero farm suicides figure in 2011.