“This is not merely a family tragedy—it is an indictment of the governments, institutions and officials who failed them for ten years.”
YAVATMAL, MAHARASHTRA: The deaths by suicide of three members of a farming family in Pimpalapur village have exposed what farmer leader Kishore Tiwari described as the complete collapse of the Indian State’s responsibility towards distressed farmers, vulnerable rural families and citizens deprived of basic agricultural infrastructure.
According to family members and village accounts, two brothers, Tapvein and Nikhil, had earlier died by suicide amid crop losses, indebtedness and severe financial distress. Their father, Dnyaneshwar Bhau, subsequently also died by suicide, leaving behind his elderly wife, Nimabai, as the sole surviving member of the household.
Nimabai is physically disabled and has impaired vision in one eye. She has now been left without an earning family member, dependable income or adequate institutional protection.
The tragedy has also been reported in the regional media as involving a 62-year-old farmer whose family had suffered repeated crop failures and mounting debt.
Farmer leader and former Chairman of the Maharashtra Government’s Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, Kishore Tiwari, visited Pimpalapur to meet Nimabai, console her and assure her that the family’s demand for justice would be taken before the Maharashtra Government and the Government of India.
“THE INDIAN STATE MUST ANSWER”
Addressing the Indian State—the Union Government, the Maharashtra Government, public-sector banks, MSEDCL, the district administration and agricultural relief agencies—Tiwari said:
“Three citizens from one farming household are dead. An elderly, disabled and visually impaired woman has been left alone. The authorities cannot dismiss this as an unfortunate personal incident. The Indian State must answer how an entire family was allowed to collapse despite approaching public institutions for assistance.”
“The Constitution promises life with dignity, equality and protection of the vulnerable. But in rural Vidarbha, farmers are forced to struggle for electricity, irrigation, institutional credit, crop insurance, food security and fair prices. When these systems repeatedly fail, the State cannot escape responsibility by describing the resulting deaths as private tragedies.”
Tiwari said the deaths must be investigated not only as individual suicide cases but as the possible consequence of prolonged institutional neglect, denial of essential services and failure of multiple government agencies.
TEN YEARS WITHOUT A FARM POWER CONNECTION
During Tiwari’s visit, Nimabai reportedly described the family’s decade-long struggle to secure an agricultural electricity connection for its farm well.
According to the family:
- An application for the agricultural power connection was submitted to Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited—MSEDCL approximately ten years ago.
- The prescribed charges were reportedly paid.
- Despite repeated representations, the connection was allegedly not provided.
- Without electricity, the family was unable to operate its farm well and irrigate its cotton crop adequately.
- Repeated crop failures and declining income increased dependence on private borrowing.
Tiwari demanded that MSEDCL publicly disclose the application history, payment records, inspection reports, waiting-list position and the names of officials responsible for processing the connection.
“If the family paid the required charges and waited for ten years while its crops failed for want of irrigation, this is not an ordinary administrative delay. It represents the denial of a basic productive asset that could have protected the family’s livelihood,” Tiwari said.
“Responsibility must be fixed. Suspension, departmental proceedings and criminal investigation should follow wherever deliberate negligence, falsification, corruption or suppression of records is established.”
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS FAILED AT EVERY LEVEL
Tiwari alleged that the Pimpalapur family was trapped by the cumulative failure of several public systems:
- Failure to provide a timely agricultural electricity connection.
- Failure to ensure dependable irrigation.
- Inadequate or unavailable institutional crop credit.
- Dependence on private lenders.
- Repeated crop losses without meaningful income protection.
- Ineffective implementation of crop insurance.
- Limited benefit from loan-waiver programmes.
- Inadequate food and social-security support.
- Absence of sustained counselling and family rehabilitation despite earlier deaths.
“After the first death, the administration should have treated the entire household as a high-risk family. After the second death, every department should have intervened immediately. Instead, the father also died and the mother was left alone. This demonstrates not simply negligence, but the absence of a functioning rural protection system,” Tiwari said.
“DO NOT TAKE ANY EXTREME STEP”
Meeting Nimabai, Tiwari appealed to her not to harm herself and assured her that the village community and farmer organisations would stand beside her.
“Please do not take any extreme step. You are not alone. The entire community stands with you. We will fight for justice, rehabilitation, accountability and dignified support,” Tiwari told her.
He called upon the district administration to immediately arrange round-the-clock family support, medical treatment, psychological counselling, disability assistance, food security and protection from coercion by private creditors.
PIMPALAPUR IS A WARNING TO THE NATION
Tiwari said the tragedy cannot be treated as an isolated incident because Vidarbha has endured an agrarian emergency for more than two decades.
Between January 2001 and January 2025, 21,219 farmers reportedly died by suicide in the five districts of the Amravati revenue division—Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Washim and Yavatmal. The reported district-wise figure for Yavatmal was 6,211 deaths, the highest among the five districts.
Maharashtra recorded 2,635 farmer suicides in 2024, compared with 2,851 in 2023, according to data compiled by the State Relief and Rehabilitation Department. The Amravati division recorded the highest number in 2024, with 1,051 deaths.
Nationally, the NCRB recorded 10,546 suicides among farmers, cultivators and agricultural labourers in 2024, with Maharashtra continuing to bear a disproportionately high burden of farm-sector distress.
“The death toll is so large and so persistent that it can no longer be described as a series of unrelated personal decisions. It reflects the structural destruction of the rural economy and the continuing failure of agricultural governance,” Tiwari said.
“COMPENSATION AFTER DEATH IS NOT AGRICULTURAL POLICY”
Tiwari criticised what he described as the government’s routine practice of offering limited ex-gratia assistance after a farmer’s death while failing to prevent the conditions that produce distress.
“Compensation after death cannot substitute for electricity before sowing, credit before the crop season, irrigation during drought, insurance after crop loss and a remunerative price at harvest.”
“The State cannot collect electricity charges and then make a farmer wait for ten years. Banks cannot deny crop credit and then remain silent when families fall into the hands of private moneylenders. Insurance companies cannot collect premiums and disappear when crops fail. Officials cannot ignore warning signs and then arrive after the funeral with paperwork.”
“This is not welfare. This is administrative abandonment.”
DEMANDS BEFORE THE MAHARASHTRA AND UNION GOVERNMENTS
Kishore Tiwari and the residents of Pimpalapur have demanded:
1. SPECIAL REHABILITATION FOR NIMABAI
The Maharashtra Government must announce a special rehabilitation package covering:
- A substantial immediate financial grant.
- A permanent monthly pension.
- Full medical treatment and disability assistance.
- Secure housing and household support.
- Lifetime food security.
- Protection from private creditors and unlawful recovery.
- Support for cultivating or leasing the family’s agricultural land.
- Appointment of a responsible district-level officer as nodal guardian.
2. TIME-BOUND JUDICIAL OR MAGISTERIAL INQUIRY
A senior-level, time-bound inquiry must investigate:
- The circumstances surrounding all three deaths.
- The family’s debt and crop-loss history.
- Applications made to government departments.
- The status of the agricultural electricity connection.
- Access to institutional crop loans.
- Crop-insurance claims and payments.
- Eligibility for loan-waiver and relief schemes.
- Actions taken by the administration after the first and second deaths.
The report should be completed within 30 days and placed in the public domain.
3. ACCOUNTABILITY OF MSEDCL OFFICIALS
The State Government must identify the officers responsible for the alleged ten-year delay and initiate:
- Suspension pending inquiry.
- Departmental proceedings.
- Recovery of losses where legally established.
- Criminal proceedings where corruption, deliberate obstruction, falsification or gross negligence is found.
4. CLEARANCE OF AGRICULTURAL POWER CONNECTIONS
All pending agricultural power connections in suicide-affected districts of Vidarbha must be audited and cleared on a war footing.
Every applicant should receive:
- A digitally traceable application number.
- Written waiting-list status.
- A legally enforceable completion deadline.
- Compensation where unjustified delay is established.
5. UNIVERSAL INSTITUTIONAL CROP CREDIT
Every eligible small and marginal farmer must receive adequate, timely and affordable crop credit before the sowing season.
Bank officials should be held accountable for arbitrary rejection, deliberate delay or diversion of agricultural credit.
6. EFFECTIVE CROP INSURANCE AND LOSS COMPENSATION
Crop-loss assessment must be transparent, village-specific and time-bound. Insurance and government compensation should reach affected farmers without repeated applications, technical exclusions or prolonged litigation.
7. FARM-FAMILY DISTRESS PROTECTION PROTOCOL
After any farmer suicide, the entire household must automatically be classified as vulnerable and provided:
- Immediate financial assistance.
- Debt counselling.
- Mental-health support.
- Food security.
- Education support for children.
- Health and disability services.
- Livelihood rehabilitation.
- Continuous monitoring for at least three years.
8. NATIONAL AGRARIAN DISTRESS COMMISSION
Tiwari urged the Government of India to constitute an empowered national commission to examine farmer and agricultural-labour suicides, rural indebtedness, crop-price instability, irrigation failures, climate-related losses and institutional accountability.
APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT, PRIME MINISTER AND CHIEF MINISTER
Tiwari appealed to the President of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Agriculture Ministry, Maharashtra Governor and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take direct cognisance of the Pimpalapur tragedy.
“The Indian Republic must decide whether a farmer is merely a producer of cheap food or a citizen entitled to dignity, justice and protection.”
“A nation that celebrates economic growth cannot remain silent when three members of one farming family die and an elderly disabled mother is left without support.”
“Pimpalapur must become the point at which the government stops counting deaths and begins fixing responsibility.”
“THIS IS A SYMPTOM, NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT”
Concluding his statement, Tiwari said:
“The Pimpalapur tragedy is not only the story of one family. It exposes the decay of Vidarbha’s rural economy and the failure of institutions created to protect farmers.”
“Unless the governments guarantee timely credit, electricity, irrigation, crop-loss compensation, effective insurance, remunerative prices and social protection, the deaths will continue.”
“The country does not need another announcement, committee or condolence message. It needs accountability, rehabilitation and immediate action.”
ABOUT THE AGRARIAN CONTEXT
Vidarbha is a predominantly rain-fed cotton and soybean-growing region of eastern Maharashtra. Farmers face recurring droughts, unseasonal rainfall, crop losses, rising cultivation costs, unstable market prices, inadequate irrigation and serious difficulty in accessing institutional credit.
Despite decades of relief packages, loan-waiver announcements and welfare schemes, the region continues to record a high concentration of farmer suicides.
Released by:
Office of Kishore Tiwari
Farmer Leader and Agrarian-Rights Activist
Former Chairman, Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, Government of Maharashtra
Contact: +91 9422108846
