One does not always need to have large money to help people. The poor but skilled people need very small money to help themselves come out of deprivation. They might not possess anything for collateral. Banks do not give loans to them. Local moneylenders squeeze these people. The scene seems to be very familiar. Professor Yunus, the economist, happened to meet such people. When he met Sufia Begum way back in 1974, he never knew it would change his life and that of others. Professor was on his visit to a local village in a famine gripped Bangladesh. Begum would weave bamboo stools from morning to evening to earn fifty paise profit in each stool. Professor also learnt that the moneylenders had not allowed Begum to increase the selling price as a part of her repayment of loans. Then he made a list of people who needed a small amount of money and found out they needed only 1500 Bangladesh Taka (roughly Rs.1100/-). He was shocked. People normally talk of investing millions and millions of Takas for economic development. But these people needed only a little. He lent that money to them and asked them to repay whenever they could afford. He also realized that this was just an emotional and personal response but what these people needed was an institutional mechanism. Grameen Bank, banking for the poor, was born. The implementation of micro-credit was also born.
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1 comment:
Yes. I met a guy who asked for a loan of Rs 2,000 at a PSU Bank. The bank asked him bring collateral - his land documents! And he did not have any movable property, they wanted him to mortgage his house also.
Microfinance is something India desperately needs
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