AP on AP: Important Story on SKS Internal Investigation of Suicides

More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of Andhra Pradesh killed themselves in late 2010, according to media reports compiled by the government of the south Indian state. The state blamed microfinance companies — which give small loans intended to lift up the very poor — for fueling a frenzy of overindebtedness and then pressuring borrowers so relentlessly that some took their own lives.The companies, including market leader SKS Microfinance, denied it.However, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, independent researchers and videotaped testimony from the families of the dead, show top SKS officials had information implicating company employees in some of the suicides.

1. The suggestion from the evidence in the article is that SKS was associated with perhaps a dozen suicides. Presumably that number misses some cases, but it is probably still the right order of magnitude. This is out of some 6 million borrowers. Roughly speaking, the suicides were 1 in a million. They, and the stories behind those numbers, are indeed compelling evidence that the system grew too fast. At the same time, we don't know how many suicides were prevented by the expanded access to microcredit---probably no more than one in a million. But that possibility means that as an empirical matter we still don't know if microcredit raised the suicide rate in India.
2. It seems clear that Vikram Akula cooperated with, perhaps even initiated, this story. Apparently, he wanted to get out the message that he tried to tell the board about the problems, after the fact, and was not heeded. Along the way, he has made some trouble for the firm that recently forced him out.