The Hindu : Business : Micro-credit leads to a silent revolution

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Friday, Oct 27, 2006
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Micro-credit leads to a silent revolution

Staff Reporter

The system is being implemented in four districts in State

PALAKKAD: A silent revolution has been going on in rural Kerala for nearly a decade, liberating poor women from a helpless existence, with the successful implementation of the micro-credit system of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, founded by Mohammad Yunus, selected for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

The scheme, implemented by the Society for Rural Improvement, headed by Prabhakar, a colleague of Mr. Yunus, from Kollengode village, has exploded the socio-economic myth that poor rural women are not credit-worthy.

He left his cushy job in the U.S. and decided to implement the micro-credit model of Mr. Yunus. Before reaching Kollengode, he had training stints under his mentor in Bangladesh in 1995. The society has served more than 17,000 poor rural women in 700 centres in Palakkad, Thrissur, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts in Kerala and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, with a loan disbursement of nearly Rs. 30 crore.

The beneficiaries' savings amount to Rs. 5.6 crore. About 98 per cent of the funding is through commercial loans from banks.

Mr. Prabhakar told The Hindu that the repayment record was almost 100 per cent. "Along with weekly repayment, there is a mandatory saving system to inculcate the habit of thrift and savings in the women. In the beginning, the loans are given exclusively to poor rural women for economically viable and environmentally sustainable income generating activities. Now we are embarking on micro-entrepreneurship, such as Vanitha canteens, Vanitha grocery stores, sewing and embroidery centres and soap and detergent units, to enable the women to stand on their own feet." Recently, the rural women under the society embarked on an innovative venture for producing cups, plates, dishes and so on from areca leaves to save the environment from plastic contamination.

As about 30 per cent of the women were engaged in rearing milch cows, the society was seriously contemplating an innovative `Women's Empowerment through Dairy Development' project, owned and operated by the women, Mr. Prabhakar said. The society was also developing a new generation of young workforce by combining the positive elements of the west and east, such as professionalism, work ethics, customer service, transparency, productivity and accountability with awareness on human labour, dignity to human beings and sensitivity to socio-economic and other conditions. The workforce was trained on how to balance "fiscal responsibility with social consciousness," he said.

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