Small Steps to Leap Forward

Karthika is a member of Karuppasamy Kalanjiam of Viratipathu cluster in the newly promoted Sammattipuram location. She is living in Achampatthu a village falling on the periphery of the western side of Madurai corporation. It is a village where agriculture is still prevalent in equal numbers and the community here is at the door steps of urbanization. As a periphery village people here engage in agriculture, MGNREGA, menial agricultural labour works and being employed in urban based skilled / semi skilled labour works. Karthika has three kids two boys and one girl all studying in government school. She used to work in her village as a agricultural labour and earn Rs.80 to Rs.100/- per day besides being engaged in their 1 acre agricultural land. Her husband used to go for agriculture labour works and he earns 170-200. However he used to get 4 or 5 days work a week.

Due to the meager economic situation they used to manage their financial requirements by getting credits from lenders and pawn brokers. At one stage to repay the interest they had resorted to get small credits. Recently they had pledged their ½ acre of land for Rs.25000/- (USD380) for meeting family needs and pay interest to debts. They were able to pay only the interest from their income. As seasoned money lenders insists to repay the loan amount in full settlements they found it painful to get out of the debts and were not able to reclaim the land as desired.

It is at this point of time Kalanjiam started getting promoted in their village. She expressed her desire for joining Kalanjiam SHG with her husband, so that they could have some savings some way. But her husband opposed her idea telling that already they were in a financial mess, let us manage the current debts and it is not appropriate to engage in any new financial scheme. However out of her interest to save some money she enrolled herself in Karuppasamy Kalanjiam concealing her participation in the group from her husband. Along with the members of the group she also saved Rs.200 every month. Over the year now she has Rs.2400/- (USD. 36). Before joining Kalanjiam she not even have single rupee as savings. Through the linkage the group got Rs.90000/-. From that linkage amount she got Rs.12000/- (USD 182)and repaid the full sum as part of repayment for reclaiming the land. She wish to repay her loan in Kalanjiam promptly and then through second loan she thought of reclaiming the land by closing the loan. This development is not known to her husband, she wish to inform him once she was able to close the loan and reclaiming the land.

Like Kathika 2388 members got organized in 172 SHG’s in the slums and semi urban areas of Madurai. They were encouraged to do savings as a primary activity which is supplemented by internal credits followed by leverage of funds from formal sources (KDFS). The members had so far saved Rs.3.31Millions (50,151 USD) and had issued Rs.12.78 Millions (193,713 USD) towards 1926 loans in groups to meet their credit needs. The groups had leveraged Rs.8.12 Million (123,030 USD) from the KDFS to manage their credit needs.