Suicide by over 17,000 farmers in 2006, the latest year for which systematic official data are available, is a huge national tragedy. In fact, the trends revealed by the National Crime Records Buresu (NCRB) on farmers' suicides are appalling. While there have been ups and downs in the annual figure, there has been no let up in the trend since 2001. The figure for 1997, in itself disturbing, was approximately 14,000. From 2002, there has been no year in which fewer than 17,000 farmers' suicides have been recorded. The 2006 figure confirms the trend. Worse, in the group of four States, namely Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (including Chattisgarh) that account for close to two-thirds of all farmers' suicides in India, the spike is relentless. These four states have together seen 89,362 farmers' suicides between 1997 and 2005, or 44,102 between 2002 and 2005. There is a widespread perception that unbearable burden of debt and increased competition from imports or symptomatic of a crisis in Indian agriculture. Both these phenomena are real: inability to bear debt has led to farmers' suicides on an unprecedented scale. However, suicides are concentrated mostly in low rainfall, poorly irrigated regions and among a rather small fraction of the population. Import liberalisation has had a strong dampening effect on the prices of several crops, especially plantation crops. This has caused considerable distress in the regions where they are prominent in the farm economy. However, without minimising the importance of these aspects, they cannot be interpreted as indicative of, or causing a widespread systematic crisis. Finance Minister P Chidambaram's Budget of 2008-09 has aroused widespread interest in methods of saving Indian farming families from indebtedness and acute economic distress, which lead to occasional suicides. The steps proposed in the Budget would certainly give relief to approximately four crore farmers, on an outlay of Rs 60,000 crore. As stated by the Finance Minister himself, "this is a major step in recognising the indebtedness of the country to farm families who, through their toil in sun and rain, are safeguarding national food security and sovereignty'. Naturally, the question arises whether this step would mark the end of farmers' dependence on money lenders and traders for their credit needs. The programme announced in the Budget covers farmers who have taken loans from scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, and cooperative credit institutions. It does not cover farmers indebted to money lenders and traders. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), 48.6 per cent of the farm households surveyed were indebted; of these, 61 per cent had operational holdings below 1 hectare. Of the total outstanding debt, 41.6 per cent wastaken for purposes other than farm related activities, such as healthcare and domestic needs; 57.7 per cent of the outstanding amount was sourced from institutional channels and 42.3 per cent from money lenders, traders, relatives and friends. It has been estimated that in 2003, non-institutional debt accounted for Rs 48,000 crore, and out of this, Rs 18,000 crore was at an interest of Rs 30 per cent per annum or more (NSSO 59th round: cited by the Economic Survey, 2007-08). The Expert Group on Agriculture Indebtedness chaired by Professor R Radhakrishna has recommended in his report of July 2007, the inclusion of the financially excluded, especially the small borrower households, and the adoption of risk-mitigating measures for agriculture. Loan waiver is the price India has to pay for the neglect of rural India during the past several decades; as reflected in a gradual decline in investment in key sectors like irrigation, post-harvest technology, market, and communication. The four crore farmers who are to be relieved of their debt burden before the end of June 2008, will become eligible once again for institutional credit for their cultivation expenses during kharif 2008. The challenge now is to prevent them from getting into the debt trap again. Naturally therefore, both Central and State governments should set up immediately an