Banking on women power

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: Commumnal riots in Gondavle village in Satara district forced Mumtaz Tamboli to migrate to Mumbai. “Life in the village was difficult after the riots,” remembers Tamboli. But surviving in Mumbai proved tougher and Tamboli returned to her village. “As I knew sewing, I decided to open a tailoring shop at home. I applied for a loan to buy a sewing machine from the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd.”

Six years later, Tamboli has opened a tailoring institute and trains 150 girls in embroidery. The Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank in Mhaswad taluka, Mann, Satara district, was the outcome of an informal talk with villagers by social worker, Chetna Gala Sinha. Operated by women, all its policies are women-friendly.

The brain behind the bank, 47-year-old Sinha, received the 13th Jankidevi Bajaj award for Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Mumbai last week. “This award is a relief. Working with marginalised communities is a risk and combined with pressure from financial institutions. To be appreciated by the mainstream is an achievement.”

For Sinha, working with the marginalised sector has been a way of life. Born in Mumbai, Sinha was involved in Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement and the Shetkari Sanghatana while in college. “I met my husband, who is a farmer from Mann taluka while I was involved in this movement. After marriage, I moved to Mann and it was here that I saw the plight of women labourers. The women, most of them illiterate, saved their meagre earnings with the moneylender. Since the money thus saved was ‘secret’, the moneylender could easily cheat them of it.

The dought-prone areas of Mann taluka do not offer any scope for employment. Women rear goats for a living and save a meagre Rs 2-5 from selling goat’s milk, which is then given to the moneylender for ‘safekeeping’. Most often, they mortgage goats for their requirements. Mainstream banks intimidate them with their paperwork.”

It was then that Sinha came up with this idea of micro-entrepreneurship among women in this inaccessible, drought-prone area. Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd., founded in 1997, is India’s first rural women’s bank to get a licence from the Reserve Bank of India to operate in the whole of Maharashtra. It is a cooperative bank run by and for women, which has helped rural women by providing them the tools necessary for achieving financial independence and self-sufficiency.