Fighting the odds with microfinance

PROFILE/ MILAN TEMBHURKAR

Chhattisgarh may be submerged in violence and terror, but it has not stopped the work of Soch and its network of 855 self-help groups (SHGs) in Rajnandgaon district.

In two months, Soch will become the first rural bank in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to function as a business correspondent for ICICI Bank.

That is a big achievement for its 32 year old founder Milan Tembhurkar, son of a railway employee.

The NGO, which has one person dedicated for every 10 panchayats to collect instalments from villagers, will now be providing bank access to hundreds of villagers as a business correspondent of ICICI Bank. As a first step, the NGO will transfer all the accounts of its self-help groups into the bank.

Tembhurkar is excited about the achievement and says these are all zero-balance accounts and people can deposit as little as Rs 10 and withdraw as little as that.

Tembhurkar began the organisation in 1999 with the intention of creating awareness and literacy among people in the area. But that was not enough for him. He wanted to take them to economic empowerment as well. Livelihood generation was important and so he began to organise people in surrounding villages into self-help groups.

But two years later, he decided to take the plunge into micro finance. "I read a lot about Mohammad Yunus and then learnt how the microfinance model works from the Karnataka NGO Myrada," he says.

Today, Soch has the biggest network of SHGs in Rajnandgaon. A total credit of Rs 32 lakh has been disbursed so far. The target for 2008 is Rs 3.5 crore at the same interest of 18 per cent. Tembhurkar has kept the focus on livelihood generation as well as empowerment of women. The 377 SHGs in Dungargarh block alone have 6,700 women.

Naxal violence does not disturb Tembhurkar, who recently recovered from an almost fatal road accident. "There are a lot of Naxals in our area. We also work in Jaspur, Kanker and Kawardha districts, where they are very active. But they don't bother us for we are very transparent in our dealings," he says.

Next year, Soch hopes to expand its microfinance activities to the other three districts also where currently it is engaged in other livelihood generation activities.

An example of 20 panchayats who set up a photocopy centre and STD booth in his district is what he likes to narrate as the kind of activities his SHGs undertake.

Soch has its fortnightly meetings in every block and panchayat where SHGs gather and pay their instalments. But the meetings are also about awareness building, exchange of information and training, says Tembhurkar.