Banda: Everything is in short supply here, especially hope. There was a flicker of it, though, when on April 30 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came here with Rahul Gandhi. Maybe the people were expecting a miracle, an end to the misery created by season after season of bad crops and the resultant rising debt. Their hope proved to be short-lived. Since then, nine farmers have killed themselves in Banda district alone, the worst hit in a cluster of seven district that form the ravaged Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. The other six districts are Hamirpur, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Chitrakoot and Jalaun. Banda district hospital has reported around 330 cases of suicide between January and May this year. Locals here say most of the suicides are by indebted farmers, their world darkened by the burden. The actual number, however, is difficult to tell. Official figures confirm 519 suicides in the seven districts in the first five months of this year. This figure includes all suicides. But even if one were to go by the official figures, there has been an alarming rise in the rate of suicides in the last five months. In the 12 months of 2009, there were 568 suicides in the seven districts against 519 in just the first five months of this year. In 2010, 583 suicides were recorded. Between 2001 and 2005, there were 1,275 cases of suicide (the period includes 2002 and 2004, two harsh drought years). debt sentence Rural indebtedness killer factor in suicides Obviously, some additional factor, other than the normal depressive factors, has been responsible for the sudden spurt in suicides. There is good reason to believe that the killer factor this year has been rural indebtedness. The total amount of current outstanding rural bank debts in Bundelkhand is Rs 4,370.32 crore. This is 21% more than 2010 when the total bank debts stood at Rs 3,613.22 cr. The region is among the most backward in the country, marked by high poverty. The soil is rocky and of low fertility, having suffered erosion of topsoil and denuded of green cover. There are no significant irrigation schemes and cultivation is largely rain dependent, though rainfall itself is scanty. Bhupat Arak, a 40-year-old farmer of Badokhar Khurd hanged himself on May 27. Officials say he killed himself after a fight with his wife. But he was supporting a family of nine: wife, mother and six children, four of them girls who have to be married off. He had six bighasof land, but the crop was a washout this year. And he owed UP Allahabad Gramin Bank Rs 1.5 lakh. In Hamirpur's Garha village, 18-year-old Manorama Singh ended her life so that her 78-year-old grandfather, Prahlad, would not have to take yet another loan for her marriage. Ending her life, she thought, would put an end to the family