The BBC News reports on the epidemic of suicides and stress-related deaths in southeast India due to pressure arising from inability to repay micro-loans. According to the article, the government of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is reporting over eighty suicides in the past few months after defaulting on loans from micro-finance companies. Further, banks have stopped lending to the micro-credit institutions due to fears that large portions of the money loaned may be unrecoverable, in a situation similar to the subprime mortgage crisis.
So, it seems that micro-credit hasn’t lived up to all the talk about how it would help the poor improve their lives
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Tags: India, Microcredit
