A Post Card Towards Empowering Rural Women

A POST CARD  TOWARDS  EMPOWERING RURAL  WOMEN……..

-Mohan Rao B. Research Scholar in Law, Dr BR Ambedkar College of Law guided by Prof. A.Subrahmanyam Prof of Law, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.

“…….Credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty. That is why ……the right to credit should be recognized as a fundamental human right….”  Muhammad Yunus.

             Thanks to the Nobel laureate of Bangladesh Prof. Yunus[1] who conceptualized and proved that ‘poor women are bankable’.[2] Kudos to the great reformer, social scientist living legend microfinance expert striving for  women empowerment in a poor country making. This was a story of poor women replicating the experiment of the largest women’s Bank in the World/Asia ie., Bangla Grameen Bank.  running Thrift co operatives under the Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided  co operative Societies Act, 1995[3] in East Godavari District Uppada Kothapalli Mandal.

The Thrift co operatives were formed when the government machinery was yet to formulate a programme for  the formation and organization of any federations of the women’s self help groups. The status of  the women’s SHGs was  only to run the SHGs for the sake of the revolving fund the government used to provide. There were overnight formations of SHGs claiming for the revolving funds. Shramik Vidayapeeth Kakinada [NGO sponsored by Government of India renamed  as Jan Shikshan Sansthan more than 150 JSS are functioning all over India]  had derived a plan and it had facilitated formation of the First four  Mutually Aided co operative society in the district the first among them  was registered on 01.01.1998.

The  MAC societies  formed  through the facilitating role played by the SVP/JSS were Desabandhavi Duvvuri Subbamma Women’s Mutually Aided Co operative Society Limited (Uppada), Kasturiba Gandhi Women’s Mutually Aided Co operative Society Limited ( Komaragiri),  Kandukuri RajyaLakshmi  Women’s Mutually Aided Co operative Society Limited ( Kondevaram) and Vedantham Kamalamma   Women’s Mutually Aided Co operative Society Limited ( Nagulapalli).  The objectives for  the women’s cooperatives were unity, thrift, co operation and mutual aid. The women who were involved in the DWACRA groups were re organized  into the Thrift co operatives and there had been regular thrift and other activities  unlike the other SHGs/DWCRA groups sponsored by the DRDA.

 The government has issued a GO to encourage the formation and organization of the thrift co operatives.  The DRDA was expected to release grants in a phased manner.  But despite the continuous persuasion and relentless efforts of the JSS DRDA did not sanction any amounts.

However, the poor women in the rural MACs were trained in such a way that there could be regular  thrift and banking activity paving the way for developing entrepreneurial skills among themselves or adding to their basic artisan skills.[4]  Several petty trades, tiny business ventures and mini Production units started and run by the poor women supported by the MACs.  Besides the women developed leadership qualities in organizing their own regular meetings. Some of the poor women were presiding over the meetings where the chief guest was the district collector or the Project Director, DRDA.  The women had at least a vague understanding and a realization about the concept that if they can make up their mind for growth through the micro finance they can win over.

During the course of time as the government initiated to organize Federations of
SHGs and there is a downtrend in the  rates  of interest the administrative costs of the WMACs have become burdensome for the –the WMACs sought to close down the WMACs to save at least the administrative costs and to reduce the loss. The status of the members in the co operatives was that the genuine members have no funds for their withdrawal and  the loan repayments are due from the loanee members.   Yet, even at this stage,  the DRDA did not respond.   The top brass in the co operative approached the district collector but in vain. Then, on the author’s advise to the members to address postcards- to the Minister for Co operatives, the Chief Minister, Governor, the Finance Minister praying for justice,  some of the members reacted from different villages in the WMACs area of operation. About 50 post cards reached the concerned authorities. Net result was a call from the PD,  DRDA requesting the author to visit his office and to help them reimburse the loss caused to the WMACs for smooth closure of the activity.

[Obviously, the author came to know that the then Finance Minister and the Minister for Co operatives, the Present Chief Minister wrote to the PD DRDA to settle the matter and report back clipping the entire set of post cards to the letter.] thus a post card from the poor and active women could get their problem solved saving them from the huge loss they were afraid of get suffered.

[1] Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. Educated in Chittagong, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. In 1972 he became head of the Economics Department at Chittagong University. He is the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank. In 1997, Professor Yunus led the world’s first Micro Credit Summit in Washington, DC.

In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from Chittagong University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and learnt that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and raise herself above subsistence level.

[2]In 1983 Muhammad Yunus formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank' founded on principles of trust and solidarity. In Bangladesh today, The  Grameen Bank has 1,084 branches, with 12,500 staff serving 2.1 million borrowers in 37,000 villages. On any working day Grameen collects an average of $1.5 million in weekly installments. Of the borrowers, 94% are women and over 98% of the loans are paid back, a recovery rate higher than any other banking system. Grameen methods are applied in projects in 58 countries, including the US, Canada, France, The Netherlands and Norway.

Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. 'Grameen', he claims, 'is a message of hope, a programme for putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long'. This work is a fundamental rethink on the economic relationship between the rich and the poor, their rights and their obligations. The World Bank recently acknowledged that 'this business approach to the alleviation of poverty has allowed millions of individuals to work their way out of poverty with dignity'

Credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty. That is why Muhammad Yunus believes that the right to credit should be recognized as a fundamental human right. It is this struggle and the unique and extraordinary methods he invented to combat human despair that Muhammad Yunus recounts here with humility and conviction. It is also the view of a man familiar with both Eastern and Western cultures — on the failures and potential for good of industrial countries. It is an appeal for action: we must concentrate on promoting the will to survive and the courage to build in the first and most essential element of the economic cycle — Man.

[3]Act No. 30 of 1995 Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies Act , 1995 The Andhra Pradesh Mutually aidded co operatiove socieities Act, 2005 adopts internationally accepted co operative principles. The Soceities are member owned and member sensitive bodies which function without the share capital from the govt. and thus function independent from the governemt involvement and control unlike their counterparts  in the 1964 Act.

[4] See the financial statement of the Rural WMAC societies facilitated by Jan Shikshan Sansthan Kakinada.