Marathwada suicide
After injuring his leg in an accident two years ago, the 43-year-old farmer had taken a Rs 6 lakh loan from a finance company to buy a transport van. On Oct 24, a Nanded-based farmer who had unpaid dues worth Rs 10,000 was found hanging from a ceiling fan in the office of micro-finance company K F Enterprises. The same month, the police registered a case against four micro-finance companies following the suicide of a 26-year-old farmer in Latur.
Dharashiv : When his soyabean crop failed, Milind Rokade lost his lifeline.
Fadnavis said he has asked RBI to tell microfinance companies not to take coercive steps. He used it to ferry farm produce to supplement his income. But after the fierce drought destroyed most of the crops in Dharur village, he was left with nothing to transport, and a barren soyabean field. One of these is a finance app. What is govt doing to regulate the micro-finance sector? After the Nanded case, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis instructed police officials to book senior officials of the microfinance companies if they harass farmers to pay back their dues.
In Rokade’s case, the annual interest rate works out to 29.5%. In the Nanded farmer’s case, the family has alleged that he was being charged Rs 70,000 on a loan of Rs 10,000. Whenever Rokade did not meet a deadline, the finance company would keep calling and send its collection agent to sit outside their house for hours, the family alleges. The suicides have also turned the spotlight on the steep interest rates being charged by the companies to the state’s poorest. In the past two years, Rukmini has sold three of the family’s goats to meet loan instalments. She has also sold all her jewellery.