Unknown Face In Top 100!
When I happened to sit in a hospital lobby for few minutes, I had enough time to browse through some of the magazines around. One of the recent editions available was the special issue from Time - Top 100 people who are changing our world & our lives around us!
So, it had all the regular names - From Bush to Angelina Jolie, The Sudoku game Champion (who gave a new life to the game in US), Nandan Nilakeni and so on! Then comes this new name, an unknown face, Vikram Akula representing SKS MicroFinance and the article talks about how he has been helping below poverty line Indian women living in villages, from 1998! So, its quite obvious - My curiosity increased to learn more about this SKS and how this businessman is in this year Time's Top 100!
Well, the numbers speak for themselves I guess! 221,000 Woman clients and $52 Million in loan! Loan amounts in the measures of around $100 (Rs.5000) for people who make around $2(Rs.100) a day! That sure is a big number to be the loan amount just for below poverty line families! Very Small Initiatives going long way as a top business and also deep into the lives of such poor families!
Some details - Women from a village are formd into sub-groups of five. Many such groups join together to form the main group (Sangam as termed by SKS) for a village! So, the women in the subgroup help each other and become responsible for repaying the loan if someone in the group defects! Likewise, the whole Sangam becomes responsible if a sub group fails to repay a loan.
Though we are just talking about poor & below poverty line families, this system is way advanced technology-wise. People have databases and they are using MIS to track the amounts, payments & loans. The villagers themselves are tracking the loan repayments using computers (with 100s of inbuilt local languages)! If this itself is surprising, there is more to it! Smart Cards just like Credit Cards are used to track loans & refunds of Rs5000 (around $100)! Wow - Technology like Smart Cards is reaching the interiors of India! This cashless system has lead to smooth flow of loaning & repayments that Visa has given the recognition for this system. That itself should have given a great boost for this whole MicroFinance business.
If you get a chance, visit SKS! You'll sure understand how people are benefiting, if you just read those moving client stories!
2 comments:
Why would US sign a nuclear deal with India and refuse to Pakistan? (the US is generally sympathetic towards Pakistan). The real motive behind this deal could be as I have deduced.
The intentions of US have been clear from their actions in the past few years. The attack on Iraq and the subsequent involvement of US in the food exchange programme scam show the US’ mad quest for oil. The main motive of this deal has been nothing else but OIL. Remember US has always said that at this rate India and China would consume the world’s entire oil and according to them only US, particularly Texas has the sole right to consume the world’s oil. This deal would empower India with nuclear energy and India would cut short the oil consumption, which is indirectly beneficial for US.
Whereas pakistan is not a very big consumer of oil, so US refused to make a deal with them. this is just my assumption, tell me, how far do u think am I true?
Well! I never felt India is a strong competitor for Oil against US! But, if that is true, then probably ur analysis may yield some way! But, using nuclear tech at the place of oil - well, we got to wait & c!
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