The dust had barely settled after the chopper took Chief Minister Manohar Joshi away, when the Kinhekars heard another knock on the door: the private money-lender's men were waiting outside to claim Mahadeo's dues.

Sources in the local administration say the villagers lost no time reporting the loan-sharks' anxiousness to the Chief Minister, whose instructions finally prised the Kinhekars from the money-lenders' clutches.

Mahadeo's story typifies the pitiful tale of thousands of others, destined to subsist in a credit-driven, agrarian economy which is far from sustainable.

Yavatmal district in Vidarbha has been hardest hit by the hostile weather inDecember-January and the consequent crop failure and collapse of the rural credit system. With a predominantly agrarian economy and no other significant commercial activity, it has about 8.5 lakh hectares under cultivation tilled by 3.5 lakh farmers.

This year, the cotton cultivation encompassed over 4 lakh hectares and was expected to yield Rs 275 crore. However, unseasonal rains and hailstorms ravaged more than half the cotton crop and reduced the quality and marketability of the diminished yield.

But cotton, dubbed `white gold' in rural Maharashtra, has ironically failed to provide the district with a sustainable economy. Agriculture continues to depend on official and unofficial credit channels and the farmers subsist on the cotton surplus. In effect, the income is too meagre to be ploughed back into the fields.

This year, the Yavatmal Sahakari Bank, one of the most accessible banks in this district, had offered credit amounting to Rs 45 crore against the Rs 17-20 crore extended by othernationalised banks. However, they collectively catered to only 25 to 30 per cent of the farmers. The rest were pushed into the waiting arms of private money-lenders. Following this year's calamity, nationalised and scheduled banks were instructed to leave the indebted farmers alone but private lenders continued to squeeze the tillers for dues.

Amravati Divisional Commissioner H R Kulkarni explains that most of the farmers in the latters' clutches were already neck-deep in debt, unable to repay credit earlier sourced from nationalised banks, which cannot issue fresh loans till earlier payments have been honoured.

The farmers had defaulted despite a successful agricultural year, which mirrors the extent of their penury. However, says the manager of a nationalised bank, ``There has been a general tendency among farmers to avoid repayments and the occasional political rhetoric has turned this tendency into a firm conviction.''

But it is not the farmers alone who are looking to the Government for financialassistance for the next sowing season; money-lenders too are anxious that the government provide the tillers with free seeds. ``I don't see my money coming back if the farmers do not receive assistance this season,'' retorts Baburam Kaldate, who has lent Rs 75,000 each to two farmers from Dharamgaon village.

Kulkarni says the Government will take up seed distribution soon, before the onset of the sowing season. However, he fears there could be a problem procuring adequate cotton seeds as the crop has failed country-wide.

The recent spate of farmers' suicides in Vidarbha has also eclipsed the problems of those who have not chosen death as a permanent solution. In fact, the Government Resolution (GR) on financial aid issued in January, was so ambiguous that few in Yavatmal could avail of it, admits and official in the divisional commissioner's office.

The GR entitles farmers to Rs 1,000 per hectare if more than half the crop is damaged by excessive rain and hailstorms. But how does one measure `excessive'rain? ``Rains above 65 mm per day is considered excessive,'' comes Kulkarni's pat reply. But it is not quite so simple. Since the heavens ignore manmade rules, the skies open up whenever they please. However, when it pours through the night, the rain is recorded as having occurred over two separate days.

But, the commissioner says, ``We have been taking a lenient view in such cases and try to accommodate as many farmers as possible under the protective umbrella.''

Despite such leniency, a significant portion of farmers (in about 2,000 villages) in Yavatmal were disqualified by the GR. ``But the administration has been working overtime to help the farmers,'' Kulkarni reassures.

With timely rains and an iota of luck, the administration may be able to tide over the crisis this year. But the credit-driven agrarian economy of Yavatmal promises to throw many more challenges in future.