Paper Title
Rising Cases of Farmer’s Suicide in Maharashtra – A Critical Review

Abstract
Due to the lack of adequate disbursement of formal credit to the farmers, they are left on the mercy of the local money lenders who charge exorbitant rate of interest i.e. upto 60% annually. The Marathwada region of Maharashtra is worst affecte. More than fifty percent of the farmers’ suicides were driven by debt. Dams in Maharashtra were constructed to serve the interest of sugar industry and not the farmers. On an average, eight farmers killed themselves every day in Maharashtra in 2016 – Vidharbha recorded the highest number of suicides. However, less than half the cases qualified for the government compensation as only in cases where the deceased farmers owned land and had proof of indebtedness qualified for compensation. Keywords- Inadequate formal finance, Farmer’s Suicide, Money Lenders, Exorbitant interest rates, debts, government compensation.