At Pagalpatti village, about 50 km from Salem in Tamil Nadu, a group of 12 women are busy crafting colourful table mats made from natural fibre, in a spacious and cheerful shed. There is laughter and chatter and positive energy in the place made colourful by their sarees, glittering jewels, and the lacing and edging material strewn around the hall with eight sewing machines.

This is the workplace of one of the 70,000 self-help groups financed by ICICI Bank, which has already disbursed cumulative loans worth Rs 1,000 crore through this programme in seven States (Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Rajasthan), and crossed the one million mark end-march 2014.

The women I meet exude grit and confidence that are infectious, and obviously come from the economic activity they undertake in this unit, turning metres of traditional beige mat rolls into colourful table mats, expertly edged with laces, so elegant that these mats have ended up at tables in Europe, too.

Children go to English medium schools

The income this activity, along with the small dairy most members run at home, has resulted in the SHG members’ children transferring from Tamil to English medium schools, with a jarring note being that while invariably all boys go to English schools, some of the girls continue in Tamil medium.

Punitha (30) is a single parent and has no qualms in saying she left her husband because he was 20 years older to her. Her 10-year-old daughter studies in an English school, and she has also contributed in the steep fees paid for her younger sister’s MCA degree and her brother’s training in a catering institute. She has three cows which give 20-25 litres of milk during season, fetching 20-25 a litre from Arogya and other dairies. She looks both happy and confident.

What about remarriage, I ask her. “Not at all, I just want to concentrate on educating my daughter," she smiles.

As some members of the group are busy converting rolls of woven mats (every month about 3,000 metres of the mat woven at a power loom nearby is delivered to this unit to be converted into table mats), I listen to the story of Rajeswari, who is the sole breadwinner of the family after her husband was bedridden 19 years ago. She used to do odd jobs till she got into the SHG. Kalyani’s husband, a construction worker, was erratic about going to work till she recently gifted him a motorcycle costing Rs 75,000, from her savings.

Apart from their children going to private schools, better food for the families, this economic independence has also lifted the social status of the women. “People in the village, as well as our own men, now treat us with respect,” says Sasikala.

What is more, these women are now free from the menace of moneylenders, who lend money at petrifying rates of interest… While running vaddi is lent at Rs 5 a month (60 per cent annual interest), speed vaddi is given at Rs 5 for 10 days (the math is frightening), and then there is another form where you have to return double the sum you borrowed in the morning.

“Only well established players get loans at Rs 4 a month (48 per cent).

The SHGs are given group loans at 15 per cent; but within the group, members take loans from the central kitty at even 24 per cent. While from the mat making activity each members gets about Rs 6,000 a month, from other economic activity such as dairy keeping, working on their own agri land, etc, the women bolster their income sufficiently to be able to wear gold studs and chains, if not bangles!

Financial inclusion

Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank, says this initiative “to enable self-help groups become financially secure is one of the most important blocks of ICICI Bank’s overall activities to drive financial inclusion in India.

At Harur, 42 km from Dharmapuri, I meet another SHG, this time of middle class and fairly well educated women, who are the wives of policemen, other government servants, etc. Vasundhara, a retired headmistress of a local school, leads the group of 13 started in 2009. Earlier the members bought sarees from Erode and Chennai in bulk and sold them at Harur. They also sell house and night wear (“super sales”), along with churidar sets, own eight sewing machines – one for special embroidery – and make good money by running tailoring classes. “Our biggest clients are the local teachers as well as housewives”, beams Mary Bosco.

But their income saw a bigger jump in 2012 when some of them trained with a jeweller to make artificial jewellery. In 2012, they got a loan of Rs 4.5 lakh, repayable in 24 months; but it has been repaid four months in advance, and this is the story in many groups. Their next loan will be for Rs 6 lakh so they can expand their business; they not only sell the jewellery which is crafted here, but also give it out on rent for marriages.

There is immense cheer and camaraderie in the group and no visitor can escape those vibes. When Kalaiselvi walks in, carrying her 10-year-old spastic child, some of the women fuss over him. “I used to be depressed sitting with my child at home, but now, being a member of this group has not only given me income, but also diversion,” she says.

The members get about Rs 6,000 a month from the SHG, and make more money through other activities. Mary helps her husband, an LIC agent, to run a photocopying shop; her daughter is doing a visual communications course in Vellore, and stays in a hostel. Most SHG members in villages help in tending the farmland they own.

Sasikala, wife of a police head constable, recalls with a grin, “At first my husband wouldn’t allow me to join this SHG, saying it will make you tired; why do you want to work? But now he is happy, because he finds me more self-confident and cheerful.”

In both the SHGs, which are obviously model ones for the bank, there is a great demand for membership from other women who were earlier sceptical. Each member, along with financial literacy, is given an ICICI booklet to keep her account, and many of them have personal SB accounts as well.

Another positive fallout for the women is that some of their children are selected, trained and placed in decent jobs by the ICICI Academy of Skills in various vocations.

Kochhar is amazed by the “remarkable entrepreneurial spirit of the SHG women, which has made this programme a success. This urges us to continue funding their dreams and help uplift more and more families. At the Bank, we strongly believe: Empower a woman and you can empower the nation.”

Over the next year, she adds, they hope to double their reach and support over two million women with a cumulative loan disbursement of Rs 2,500 crore.

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