From ₹1 Lakh Loan to Selling a Kidney: Why Transparent Credit Scoring Is a Matter of Life and Dignity

India’s agrarian crisis revealed its most brutal face this month.

Roshan Sadashiv Kude, a farmer from Chandrapur district in Maharashtra, alleges that he was forced to sell his kidney in Cambodia after a ₹1 lakh loan spiraled into an unpayable ₹74 lakh. Predatory interest rates, compound penalties, and relentless harassment by moneylenders pushed him to the brink.

He sold his land, his tractor, and household belongings. Police complaints reportedly went unanswered. According to his account, one lender even suggested selling an organ as a “solution.” With no institutional support left, he did.

This is not an aberration. It is a systemic failure.

A Crisis Measured in Lives

Maharashtra continues to lead India in farmer suicides. By September 2025, 781 farmers had taken their own lives in just nine months, driven by debt, crop failure, and climate shocks.

Vidarbha and Marathwada remain epicenters of distress. These regions do not lack effort or resilience—they lack fair access to credit.

Behind every statistic lies a familiar pattern:

Exclusion from formal finance
Dependence on informal moneylenders
A debt spiral with no exit

The Root Cause: Financial Exclusion by Design

Nearly 190 million Indians are credit-invisible, despite widespread bank accounts and daily UPI usage.

Traditional credit bureaus rely on proprietary, black-box models that penalize “thin-file” borrowers—disproportionately impacting SC/ST/OBC communities, who together form the backbone of India’s agrarian economy.

Denied formal credit at reasonable rates (12–15%), farmers turn to informal lenders charging effective APRs of 60–120%. Combined with climate volatility and rising input costs, repayment becomes impossible.

This is not just an economic failure. It is a loss of dignity.

A Missed Opportunity in Plain Sight

UPI processes over 16 billion transactions every month, including deep rural penetration. These transactions reveal:

Income regularity
Spending discipline
Transaction diversity
Resilience to shocks

Yet this data is either ignored or used opaquely—without explanation or accountability.

Credit scoring does not have to be a black box.

The Case for Transparent, Inclusive Credit Scoring

Alternative credit scoring—when done transparently—can replace exclusion with inclusion.

The Open Credit Initiative is an open-source, rules-based framework built on consent-driven UPI data via RBI’s Account Aggregator ecosystem.

Key principles:

Open-source (Apache 2.0 licensed)
Explainable and auditable
Privacy-first and DPDP-compliant

With just three months of UPI history, first-time borrowers can be assessed fairly. Borrowers receive clear explanations such as:

“Your transaction regularity strengthens your score. Increasing merchant diversity can improve it further.”

Credit becomes a learning system, not a judgment.

Evidence from the Ground

Pilots across 23 cooperative societies in Maharashtra and Karnataka show:

61% approval rate (vs. 38% traditional)
71% loans to SC/ST/OBC borrowers
48% loans to women
Default rate of just 3.2%

Inclusion did not increase risk. It reduced it.

Borrowers changed behavior once they understood how scores worked. Lenders reduced costs. Trust replaced fear.

Toward a Dignified Financial System

Roshan Kude’s story demands urgent reform:

Strong action against predatory lending
Mandatory transparency in credit scoring
Clear RBI guidelines on responsible alternative data

The infrastructure already exists. What is missing is intent.

No farmer should sell a kidney—or their life—for credit.

Finance must serve dignity.

Get Involved

The Open Credit Initiative proves that open, explainable, and humane credit systems are possible today.

Code: https://github.com/open-credit/open-credit-core
Learn more: https://opencredit.org.in
Contact: info@lumexpay.com

Let us make credit truly inclusive.