Mumbai: Maharashtra recorded 13,128 farmer suicide cases between Jan 2022 and June 2026 — averaging more than eight a day — but it has withheld district-wise figures sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, activist Jeetendra Ghadge has alleged.
Ghadge, of the Young Whistleblowers Foundation, had sought district-wise and month-wise figures for the 54-month period. On July 24, the department’s public information officer, Snehal Sawant, said the information was available with individual district collector offices and advised him to approach them. Ghadge filed a first appeal on Aug 18. After a hearing on Sept 8, the department provided a consolidated statewide table but did not disclose the district-wise breakdown. Ghadge’s demand for wider financial protection dates back to June 21, 2023, when he wrote to then chief minister Eknath Shinde about families whose Rs 1 lakh compensation claims had been rejected.
He proposed including suicide among the events covered by the Gopinath Munde Shetkari Apghat Vima Yojana, so that every affected family would receive Rs 2 lakh irrespective of the cause of death.
The missing data are crucial for identifying clusters of distress, comparing trends across districts and assessing whether govt interventions are working, he said.