In Marathwada: ‘A person dies but debt doesn’t’

“How are we supposed to know about government schemes? There is nobody to inform us about programmes meant for us,” says 42-year-old Sanjeevani Bedage from Dharashiv district of Maharashtra. She is a farmer in Jalkot village of Tuljapur taluka who also labours on the fields of others to add to her meagre income. Since 2020 she has been trying to get integrated into various government schemes – but every attempt of hers to do so, however, has been a failure. “My husband, Shankar, died by suicide on January 24, 2020 – a few days before the lockdown began,” Sanjeevani says. “A person dies but debt doesn’t. My husband ended his life because of the debt burden. Now I live with that burden every day.”

Her late husband’s father owns a five-acre farm in Jalkot on which Shankar and his three brothers used to cultivate collectively. “Our farm is rainfed and has no access to water supply, but we still take on some water intensive crops as they have better prices,” Sanjeevani says. “We have soyabean and tur during monsoon and jowar, wheat, and black chickpeas post Diwali.”

From 2011 till about 2014, the prices were about Rs. 2,200 a quintal for jowar, wheat and black chickpeas, and around Rs. 5,000 a quintal for soyabean and tur. After setting aside enough for family consumption, they had around 4 quintals of each winter crop – totalling roughly Rs. 26,400, and 5 quintals of soyabean and tur each – adding up to Rs. 50,000. That meant an income of close to Rs. 76,400 annually. This money was divided into four parts for the families of the four brothers, Sanjeevani told me in Jalkot.

“The kachhaghar [mud house with a straw roof] we all lived in had many problems,” she explains, “Especially during monsoon – the roof leaked, and our children used to fall sick often. Healthcare is extremely expensive.”

The Bedages were a family of 15 crowded in a house of three bedrooms. To ease that, all the brothers decided to start living separately and build their own homes on a little piece of land – almost half an acre – that they owned. Shankar went in for a private loan to be able to afford that. As he and Sanjeevani have two sons, they decided to build a two bedroom-kitchen house for the four of them.

In 2015, Shankar borrowed Rs. 13.5 lakhs from a private moneylender in their village – at an interest rate of 10 per cent a month. “That’s when our problems just started mounting,” says Sanjeevani as she covers her head with a saree pallu. Like most women here who have been widowed, Sanjeevani never wears a bindi.

The 2015 monsoon was extremely bad for the Marathwada region, especially for the Dharashiv district (known as Osmanabad before the name was officially changed). And 2016 was declared a drought year in the region by the Maharashtra state government. “We had to struggle a lot to get water to drink, forget about managing water supply for the farm,” says Sanjeevani. During the drought of 2016, Sanjeevani had to walk about one kilometre every alternate day and stand in the long queue to get water from a nearby well. “I used to carry back three ghagri [water pots],” she says. “I used to start at around 10 a.m. to fetch water after finishing the house chores – which began at six in the morning.” She says that the persisting drought has been the worst phase of her life. “There was no water to drink. The rich farmers from the village managed to buy full water tanker loads – we couldn’t afford that. Plus, due to the added responsibility of fetching water, I couldn’t even work on any other farm,” says Sanjeevani. Which meant she lost her earnings for those days.

“So, 2016-17 was a drought year and so was 2018-19. We had a series of crop failures during those years. Our annual income dropped to around 13,000 rupees. My husband couldn’t repay the loan in this period,” Sanjeevani says. “And frustrated with the mounting debt, he decided to end his life.” Shankar hanged himself at around 4 p.m. on January 24, 2020, from a tree in their neighbour’s farm. Over 10,600 farmers and farm workers died by suicide across the country in that year alone, according to data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Shankar was one of them.

Based on the state wise data collated from NCRB annual reports, about 400,000 farmers in India died by suicide between 1995 and 2018. Maharashtra has for over a decade been the state with the highest number of farmer suicides. In just the first three months of this year, 2025, the number of farmer suicides in the state has been 767. Of these, 269 in the Marathwada region alone. This marks a 32 per cent increase in such deaths as compared to the same period in 2024, when 204 farmer suicides were recorded, as reported by PTI.

Shankar’s family received a compensation of one lakh rupees – a cheque of Rs. 30,000 and a fixed deposit of Rs. 70,000 in the form of a 5-year post office scheme FD that will mature in 2026. Sanjeevani gave the Rs. 30,000 to the moneylender as partial repayment of the loan taken by Shankar.

“With my husband’s death, I thought everything is over now. How would my sons and I survive in his absence? I couldn’t think of anything for a month – till the Covid lockdown was announced. One after the other – we had a series of crises to deal with!” Sanjeevani says.

She began toiling as a labourer in the fields of others, apart from working in their own farm. “I used to get work maybe twice a week – as per the need of the farm owners. For the months of February to May there was harvesting and weeding related work. I earned 150 rupees a day from 2020 to 2022. Now the wage rate is 200 per day,” says Sanjeevani. Her earnings were around Rs. 1,200 a month, a small amount for a family of three. “Covid-19 also affected my children’s education. My younger son – Abhishek [he is now 20] – was in Class 12 back then. I couldn’t afford to buy a smartphone [for the online schooling of that period] – it was soon after the death in our family. So, he dropped out of school. Ever since, my little boy has also worked as a daily wager. I feel so bad about how my financial distress is affecting my children’s future,” she says.

Sanjeevani’s elder son – Rushikesh, 21 – had completed Class 12 by 2020 and was waiting to get enrolled in a college for a bachelor's degree. But seeing his family’s financial plight, he decided not to burden his mother with his college fees and took a few years’ gap – till 2025. This year, though, he gained admission in Balaghat college of Naldurg (Dharashiv district). He is now a first year B.Com student. His annual college fee is Rs. 1,050.

“The other women from my village who are widowed, told me about vidhva pagar (Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Anudan Scheme). Otherwise, I would have never known about this programme,” says Sanjeevani. This scheme provides for direct cash transfer of Rs. 1,000 every month to destitute women including widows. Strikingly, the scheme is colloquially referred to as vidhva pagar which means ‘pension for widow’ – although widows are just one among several categories of its beneficiaries. Enrolment in the programme takes place in the Tuljapur tehsil office.

“I went all the way to the tehsil office to enquire about the required documents for the schemes. It costs me 200 rupees for a round trip in a rickshaw. During the pandemic there were no buses. Plus, I also have to let go of work for one day – a loss of another 150 rupees,” says Sanjeevani. A loss of Rs. 350 to journey the 32 kilometres from Jalkot to Tuljapur and back.

“At the tehsil office, I was told to get the death certificate of my husband, bank passbook, copy of Aadhaar card, copy of my voter’s ID, Below Poverty Line certificate, rahivasi [resident] certificate, and copies of my photo. I came back home. I went to a nearby studio and got my photo clicked. It took me a month to arrange all these documents.”

Hoping to finally receive the monthly pension of Rs. 1,000, Sanjeevani went back to the tehsil office with all the required documents. They, however, had more demands.

“They asked me why I didn't have a Rastriya Kutumba Labh Yojana [National Family Benefit] form filled. How would I know about this form unless someone informs me? I am so tired of proving everyday what I rightly deserve,” says Sanjeevani. It has been more than three years, but she is still not enrolled into the scheme.

The repayment of the loan taken by Shankar continues to be her burden. “With my earnings, in the last two years, I have somehow managed to repay fifty thousand rupees to the private money lender – who keeps asking me for payments.” However, the interest amount and the principal sum of Rs. 13 lakhs are yet to be repaid.

“Ever since we separated from our joint family,” says Sanjeevani, “we have been trying to get our yellow ration card. The ration shop owner told me that my name is included in the list of the beneficiaries, but he will only issue the ration card if I pay him one thousand rupees. Where do I get this money from? To get a yellow ration card – meant for people who are daridrya reshe khali (below poverty line) – they demand money. Our struggle to get enrolled into the scheme, which is meant for us, is never ending,” says Sanjeevani.

If you are suicidal or know someone in distress please call Kiran, the national helpline, on 1800-599-0019 (24/7 toll free), or any of these helplines near you. For information on mental health professionals and services to reach out, please visit SPIF’s mental health directory.