CREDIT ABLE
MADHURIGHOSH, 70 Founder, Bagnan I Mahila Bikash Cooperative Credit Society, HOWRAH
“I DREAM OF A DAY WHEN NO WOMAN WILL HAVE TO DIE OF MALNUTRITION OR FOR DOWRY OR ANY KIND OF ABUSE”
In 1971, as part of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the Bagnan block of West Bengal’s Howrah district, Madhuri Ghosh, then in her early 20s, would routinely hear learners complain about alcoholic and abusive husbands. “Our block was notorious for hooch dens and men wasting away their lives,” says Madhuri, who set up the Bagnan Mahila Samiti to empower such women. Using government programmes, she got them vocationally trained—in food processing, tailoring, knitting, etc. Gradually, the women started selling their products in the nearby villages, investing the profits back into their business.
But Madhuri realised that budding entrepreneurs would need a reliable credit facility if they were to scale up. In 1997, with 579 women from Bagnan as members and a capital of
Rs 1 lakh, she set up the Bagnan I Mahila Bikash Cooperative Credit Society (BMBCCS). “We went door to door, encouraging women to start by depositing Rs 10-20 every month. Soon, a woman who, say, had saved Rs 1,000 in three months was aiming to save Rs 5,000 in the next three. It just caught on,” says Madhuri.
Today, BMBCCS has grown phenomenally to 34,000 account-holders, who are also its members, across 82 villages of Bagnan and boasts of assets worth Rs 40 crore. It extends credit worth Rs 2 crore a month, has a repayment record of 96 per cent and no bad debts. “We managed to build such a huge asset as 85 per cent of our members are regular depositors,” says Madhuri, a former chairperson of the society.
BMBCCS offers a savings interest rate of
4 per cent and a term deposit interest rate of 8 per cent. The movement has brought sweeping socio-economic changes for women in Bagnan. Alcoholism among men, too, has reduced. Not only are the women financially stronger, they have become decision-makers in their families, as principal breadwinners. Like Chhabi Mondal and Zareena Begum, who received a helping hand from BMBCCS to start their own business after banks refused them credit. “Had I not received a loan of Rs 80,000 back in 1997, I wouldn’t have been able to break out of poverty,” says Mondal. “From selling fish, I now run a grocery store and a loom.” ■