In a series of copy-cat suicides, following deaths in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, farmers have killed themselves in Western Vidarbha in Maharashtra. Crop failure has led at least six farmers to commit suicide here over the last 20 days.

In December last year, unseasonal rains in Vidarbha destroyed the cotton crop just as it was ready to be harvested. The farmers' agitation turned violent, leaving nine of them dead in police firing. To placate them, the state government announced relief amounting to Rs 1,000 per hectare of cotton plantation against the Rs 46.8 crore sought by the Amravati district administration. Sources in the collector's office said the government had allocated only Rs 14.43 crore during the last sixmonths.

The death blow, however, came in mid-March when hailstorms ravaged cotton, sunflower and pulses in Amravati and Yavatmal districts. They left farmers with barren fields and mountains of debt, easy prey to private moneylenders. The district administration confirmed six suicides, the unofficial figure is higher.

In cotton-rich Western Vidarbha, the yield has been a measly 23 lakh quintals against last year's 63 lakh quintals. Apart from plunging farmers into penury, it has also triggered a severe cash crunch. And with unofficial lending rates touching almost 20 per cent, most farmers have unpaid loans taken from nationalised banks. Till the unpaid bank loans are repaid, the farmers cannot seek further credit.

A typical victim of this vicious cycle is Vithuji Irbhan Vasukar from Malkapur in Amravati. At the beginning of the season, he had sowed cotton on his 4.5-acre plot but lost the entire yield due to unseasonal rain. The 7.5 kg of cotton he salvaged was not enough to feed his family of14.

Only last year, Vasukar had been saddled with heavy debts following his daughter's wedding. Almost penniless, he sold his bullock cart and bought an autorickshaw for his son with a loan from the Mahatma Phule Vikas Mandal.

Vasukar did not know it then but he had just signed his death warrant. He reneged on loan repayment and sold the rickshaw to pay some of his dues. It didn't help. Desperate, Vasukar got himself hired as a farm labourer in the nearby village but still failed to make ends meet. Sucked into the vicious cycle of debt, he killed himself on March 14. The local police confirmed his death was suicide.

Ten days later, Bhagwan Singh Thakur from Bamni-Tata Nagar in Daryapur tehsil walked to the bank of the Bhuleshwar river at the crack of dawn and hanged himself from a tree. A notation in the records at the local police station simply said his ``family life was disturbed due to debt''.

Dr Gulabsingh Kashyap, a local activist, said Thakur had received only a pittance from the aid announcedby the government following unseasonal rains in December last year.

Similarly, on April 3, Prataprao Patil hanged himself from a tree overhanging the terrace of his house in Yerla village of Maurshi tehsil even as his family was asleep. Though his family refused to speak, villagers said Patil was steeped in debt and could not compensate for his crop failure.Two suicides were reported in the same district, but the police and the administration refuse to attribute them to crop failure. Tulsiram Ingle of Parsapur jumped into a well while the body of another farmer, unidentified, was found in a well in Vagholi village.

Two suicides were reported in Yavatmal at the same time. On March 25, a woman from Veni village walked into the Kalamb police station and complained that her husband, Sakharam Patil, had killed himself for fear of facing the wrath of the moneylender.

The moneylender had threatened to seize her husband's bullock as he had defaulted on a loan he had taken six months ago.

But the localadministration did not pay any attention. A complaint from Kishore Shetty, convenor of the Kapus Utpadak Jansangharsh Samiti, pertaining to two suicides - in Bori village of Ralegaon tehsil and the other in Umri Road village of Kelapur tehsil - went unheeded. Both the farmers had chosen to end their lives as they had been unable to cope with pressing financial difficulties.

While the Amravati collector was not available for comment, another senior official said paucity of relief funds had left the administration helpless and the farmers with next to nothing.