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Although cultivators indebtedness is universal in subsistent farming, its impact is perhaps nowhere as crushing as in India. Unfortunately, over 85 per cent of all the cultivating families are under debt. It is because of heavy indebtedness that several thousand farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Odisha, Gujarat, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh have committed suicide during the last ten years. The small and marginal farmers are still dependent on money-lenders who charge exorbitant interest on loans (25 to 40 per cent per annum). In the case of non-payment, the money-lenders grab their mortgage property making them pauper. Some special provisions have been made in the draft of the Eleventh Five Year Plan to overcome the problem of farmers indebtedness. A scheme of debt waiving for small and marginal farmers and debt relief for other farmers was announced by the government in the Union Budget of 2008-09.