The Hindu Business Line : Life-giving loans

In a shop filled with aluminium, brass and bronze utensils, M. Shobha, 45, flaunts her `mangalsutra' weaved in a gold chain. She holds it with pride for she was able to convert it into this precious metal with her own money. The newfound confidence of handling her own finances is writ large on her face when she explains her transformation from a door-to-door vendor of utensils to the proud owner of her own shop.

It all started in 1998 when 100 women like Shobha living in slums of Hyderabad found their mentor in Girija Ramamurthy, Founder and CEO of Sharada's Women's Association For Weaker Section (SWAS).

Something that started for poor urban women with loans of just Rs 1,000 for their children's education, this year distributed income generating loans worth Rs 104 crore to 77,000 clients across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Maharashtra.

"Every woman is born with entrepreneurial skills. She is a dreamer and she adapts to situations once she's married. She has commitment and leadership skills. The only thing that she needs is economic support. And, after all, you just need common sense to run a business," says Girija.

Breaking out from home-life and refusing to coil up in her cocoon after her children grew into an independent life, she created SWAS, which has one lakh members. It supports 168 small ventures like agarbatti making, stabilisers making, motor winding, readymade garments and so on. Girija wants to expand its reach to provide housing loans for which the National Housing Bank is likely to provide Rs 10 crore. She also wants to start a pilot project next financial year in Hyderabad for people migrating from villages.

"All financial activities of the organisation will be transferred to a non-banking financial company, for which an approval from RBI is likely to come through by this yearend," Girija says.

One might wonder whether this spirited woman who began with just Rs 1 lakh as her capital taken from a Hyderabad-based NGO, Asmita Resource Center, has had any financial training. Girija, 46, a mother of two, completed her graduation course through correspondence. She was earlier forced to discontinue her studies due to personal reasons. She was married at the age of 21 and moved to Hyderabad in 1984.

Her journey as a social entrepreneur began around 1996. . "I started giving free tuition to my maidservant Manjula's children and as word spread the numbers started growing. But in 1997, the people in my apartment building began objecting. However, when I tried to stop the tuitions the children's parents wouldn't let me. They wanted to take their children out of school and put them under my guidance as the education was free," she reminisces.

This triggered the idea of educational loans. In another development, when her homemade oil caught the fancy of her daughter's friends, she decided to supply it in bulk. "I approached a nationalised bank for a loan of Rs 20, 000, which has still not come through," she laughs.

After financing 100 women initially, the same year she gave loans of Rs 5,000 each to 20 female broomstick-vendors through the same NGO, Asmita. In 2000, she approached the funding agency for a loan of Rs 10 lakh to help 536 women fund the education of their children.

"I wanted to ensure that this money facilitated the education of 1,200 girls and 800 boys up to secondary level, but Asmita could not give us that amount and put us on to Friends of Women World Banking (FWWB)."

The organisation was reluctant initially because they had to consider financial returns, whereas she wanted it for a social cause. "I asked them to see education also as an income generation activity because it would eventually bear fruit."

Since then, there has been no looking back for SWAS. Currently the organisation receives financing from FWWB, HDFC Bank, UTI, Maanavee (earlier Oiko credit fund), Bellwether fund and HSBC Bank. Proposals from SIDBI, ING Vysya Bank and State Bank of India are also in the pipeline.

"I believe that a loan given to a women reaches everyone in the family and they are very particular about repaying it too," says the woman who gets a 98 per cent repayment rate.

Despite her busy working day Giirija still finds time for cooking and is an avid music lover. "Music plays in my house all the time... any kind, as long as it is melodious I can listen to anything. I am renewing my reading habit too. I want to pursue an MBA now," she says.

She is also keen to scale up her work through a sustainable business model. Social-Impact, an organisation working with capacity building of individuals involved in social enterprises, is helping her in this bigger journey.

More Stories on : Gender | Credit Market | Entrepreneurship

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