Nagpur, August 29 :

Suicides by distressed farmers has assumed epidemic proportions in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region in western India, with eight of them reported Sunday, preceded by six on Saturday.

Taking the toll since Aug 15 to a menacing 60 (796 since June 2005) is farmer Parasram Raghoji Kannake, 65, of village Sawla in Amravati district.

Parasram’s body was found in a farm well Sunday, two days after he went missing. Holding a hectare of land, the elderly man had a long unpaid loan of State Bank of India besides a recent loan from a credit cooperative society, informed sources in Dhamangaon said on telephone. Parasram’s suicide is third in Dhamangaon tehsil since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited it July 1.

Chintaman Maruti Sahare, 40, of village Pimpalkhuti in Kalamb tehsil of Yavatmal district and Namdeo Shankarrao Jichkar, 30, of village Hatgaon in the same district are two other debt-ridden farmers who ended life Sunday.

Married two years ago, Namdeo had sown his newly inherited five-acre land for the first time this season but became despondent when recent floods washed away his labour. He committed suicide by consuming poison.