The applicants are mother and son, having two acres of land. They availed a loan of Rs.30,000 on November 7, 2002. They were regularly making payments. But recently due to distress, repayment could not be made. Now an amount of Rs.20,117 is due. According to the [North Malabar Gramin] bank, this being a regular account, no scheme is available for settlement. But the applicants, being distressed farmers, deserve help. Accordingly, the head office of the bank is directed to consider closure of loan account receiving Rs.20,000 by March 30, 2009. The result of consideration shall be intimated to the applicant within two months. Final Order on Application No. 2007 issued by the Kerala State Farmers' Debt Relief Commission at Kalpatta in Wayanad district on November 7, 2007. Placed against the mother of all farm loan waivers announced in the Union Budget, this recommendation to waive a mere Rs.117 and grant a two-year extension of deadline to repay the loan would not seem to be a grand gesture of help to the peasant family. But it was such seemingly unimpressive incremental actions of the Kerala State Farmers' Debt Relief Commission, besides its very presence, that generated respite, hope and interest in an otherwise grim rural milieu and perhaps even played a crucial role in ending farmers' suicides in Kerala by mid-2007. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, which came to power in May 2006, established the statutory commission in March 2007, a unique experiment in the country, against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and continuing distress in the farm sector because of drought, destruction of crops, mounting indebtedness and a growing number of suicides by farmers. Between mid-2004 and May 2007, amid crop damage, falling prices and mounting debt, Kerala reported nearly 2,000 peasant suicides, the majority of them in the hill districts of Wayanad and Idukki. The LDF government responded with the debt relief commission on the basis of its "alternative view' that the way out of the agrarian crisis must be through deliberate state interventions to protect farmers and farm labourers from the baneful consequences of integration with global capitalism and the policies of liberalisation. The commission, with the powers of a civil court and headed by a retired High Court Judge, was primarily meant to provide relief to farmers (owning up to four hectares and having an annual income of up to Rs.2 lakh) and farm labourers from the indebtedness they had incurred up to December 2006, the date of commencement of the Kerala Farmers' Debt Relief Commission Act. The commission had the power to negotiate with creditors for loan waiver, interest rate relief, loan rescheduling or moratorium; ask the government to take over the debt of an indebted farmer entirely or partially; and recommend to the government the extent and manner in which debt relief should be granted to farmers. It was not just crop loans that came under the commission's ambit but also loans taken for "agricultural allied commercial purposes', which meant debts incurred for medical treatment, education, marriage and so on. One of the most significant provisions of the Act was the inclusion of private moneylenders in the list of creditors the commission could deal with. The commission had powers to declare a region, particular crop/s or individual farmers or farm labourers "distress affected'. It could keep in abeyance the repayment of all the debts of farmers for a period of one to three years, fix a "fair rate of interest' and an "appropriate level of debt' to be payable by a farmer to his creditor; undertake conciliation for settlement of disputes between indebted farmers and creditors: and adjudicate disputes between farmers and creditors and pass awards, which would be binding on both the parties. (Debt relief announced by the commission was, however, not to exceed 75 per cent if the debt was Rs.50,000 or less, and 50 per cent if the debt exceeded Rs.50,000 after settlement, or Rs.1 lakh, whichever was less.) The commission had tried to justify its mandate, but, in retrospect, perhaps its interventions and the government's response to them were dwarfed by the demand it generated. Soon after the commission was constituted on March 19, 2007, it was overwhelmed by petitions from farmers from all over Kerala. But the initial enthusiasm the commission generated as it effectively deferred eviction proceedings began to wane when the anticipated loan waiver or debt transfer to the government did not happen. The commissions