It is widely accepted that Indian Farmers are in debt trap. Due to this debt trap and their inability to pay back the loan they go for suicide. Though this phenomenon has been observed in the farmers of Vidarbha region, but Bundelkhand region is also not free from this trend of farmers’ suicide. During the baseline survey at Rajapur village JCSS staff visited the whole village. In this process the staff came to know about the debt position of the farmers of this village. There is a ‘samiti’ named ‘Zila Sadhan Sehkari Samiti, Rajapur’ in this village. It gives loan to farmers for different activities. There are two display boards on which name of all those farmers have been written who didn’t repay the loan. It is matter of great concern that most of the famers who have taken loan have to pay more interest than the principal amount, in some case 100% higher interest! This is a matter of great concern. For example, Sriram, s/o Ramsingh, village- Rajapur has taken loan Rs 13885/- as loan. The interest has become Rs. 36015/- and now he has to pay Rs.49920/-. Another example is of Kasturi, w/o Narayan das, village Rajapur has taken loan of Rs. 6545/-. Now the interest has become Rs. 16620/- and thus she has to pay Rs. 23180/-. The condition of Shalik ram, s/o Jagannath is worst. He took rs. 12326/- as loan. The interest has become rs. 30914/-. Now he has to pay Rs. 43260/-(In all these calculation Rs. 15 to 20 has been added as ‘digar’ by the Samiti). 
It is clear from these data that the village Rajapur needed an urgent intervention. Farmers of this village are in debt trap. During visits to this village JCSS staff also came to know that SHGs groups in this village have been defaulter, so the bankers are unwilling to open-up any bank account of SHGs from this village. Now the Board 1 and 2 (the above two black boards)reveal the critical situation. The process of formation of Farmers club has been started under Harit Prayas project. Hope in course of time the project may bring some relief to debt trapped farmers and save their life by ensuring sustainable livelihood options.
...hope HARIT PRAYAS would be able to make farmers to come out of debt through intervening in enhancing the source of livelihood!
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