Apologies for not posting lately - we just got back a few days ago from a trip to Mysore and HD Kote, of which had internet access for us, and then unfortunately returned to Bangalore to find that the internet at my service apartment was down. But now we're back online and back to work at the Bangalore offices. The past two weeks have been great both for the research and for us as Indian tourists. Mysore is certainly very welcoming to tourists, and we got to do all sorts of things like wash elephants, visit temples, and see the Mysore Palace all lit up at night. Of course, even though Mysore is a tourist destination within India, this doesn't necessarily mean that people there are accustomed to foreigners. By the end, we felt like tourist attractions ourselves - I'm decently sure that 1/5 the population of Mysore has pictures with/of us.
The Mysore SRFS staff was incredibly helpful (as was the couple who lived in the apartment above the office and offered us tea when we accidentally walked into their house instead of Sanghamitra's offices). We were able to visit 6 groups on Monday and Tuesday. Because these were urban groups, there were not too many significant differences between them and the groups in Bangalore in terms of occupation and access to markets, etc. Some were all-Muslim groups, some lived in slums, but beyond that the structure was quite similar. To some extent, they did seem to be showing us their "star pupil" groups - we tried to meet with one default group, but unfortunately we could not get in touch with any of the members. The second day of interviews, the new representative of NABARD joined us on our interview. NABARD is the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, which was one of SRFS's main donors at the beginning. Having the official along was extremely helpful, in that he could speak the local language and thus could extract more in his interviews and back-and-forths with the women. However, as a government official, we were also mildly concerned that this affected the answers the women gave. For example, one of the Muslim groups reported that since they started the SHG, they are now more free to leave the house and engage in economic transactions without the permission of their husbands. But when asked if they had any problems at home, none of them were willing to say anything, which seemed at least suspicious given their previous statements. All in all, however, Mysore provided some interesting insights into the project as well as a nice change of pace.
HD Kote, however, was even more remarkable. Kote is a very small town (if it even qualifies as a town), so our interviews here were our first look at SRFS's rural operations. People in Kote are of course even less accustomed to having foreigners stop by. At one point a restaurant actually opened hours early exclusively to get us breakfast. We were able to do 6 groups in one day in Kote, thanks to the portfolio manager and loan officer who took us around on their motorcycles all day and translated for us. There was a wide array of groups, from default groups who failed to repay because two members ran away with the money, to an all flower-growers group, to an all male group (which, for those of you who are not familiar with microfinance, is incredibly rare - around 97% of microfinance borrowers are female). At one point we were doing two interviews at one time, which needless to say was incredibly difficult, particularly because one of them was the all-male group. HD Kote was the first time we had the opportunity to discuss microinsurance with the groups as well. Because most of these groups were sponsored by MYRADA (SRFS's parent NGO) most of them had bought into a health insurance policy which costs 200 rupees per year ($4) per member. Many of them reported that it had significantly decreased their medical costs, and even one group that was in default was still paying into health insurance. Another interesting finding from the default groups was that while many of them were in default because of overindebtedness (taking multiple loans from various MFIs) the other MFIs were getting repaid before SRFS. This is mainly because other MFIs operate on the Joint Liability Group (JLG) model, meaning that no member in the group can receive another loan if even one member fails to repay. Thus, there is significantly more pressure to repay in JLGs than there is in SHGs.
Given this finding, Yavor and I have decided to spend some of our remaining time in Bangalore doing interviews at other MFIs to better understand their lending models in contrast to Sanghamithra's. We will also be continuing to interview SHGs in Channapattana, Ramangar, and Hosur, all of which are within 50 km of Bangalore. This week we also gathered the rest of Sanghamithra's financials, including their balance sheets for every year from 2002 onwards, which effectively covers all of their years of operation, as well as their Annual Reports. Before we go, we also intend to do some interviews with staff at MYRADA and SRFS to get a more complete picture of their day-to-day operations. With only 24 days remaining in our time here, that should be more than enough to keep us busy right until the end.
The Mysore SRFS staff was incredibly helpful (as was the couple who lived in the apartment above the office and offered us tea when we accidentally walked into their house instead of Sanghamitra's offices). We were able to visit 6 groups on Monday and Tuesday. Because these were urban groups, there were not too many significant differences between them and the groups in Bangalore in terms of occupation and access to markets, etc. Some were all-Muslim groups, some lived in slums, but beyond that the structure was quite similar. To some extent, they did seem to be showing us their "star pupil" groups - we tried to meet with one default group, but unfortunately we could not get in touch with any of the members. The second day of interviews, the new representative of NABARD joined us on our interview. NABARD is the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, which was one of SRFS's main donors at the beginning. Having the official along was extremely helpful, in that he could speak the local language and thus could extract more in his interviews and back-and-forths with the women. However, as a government official, we were also mildly concerned that this affected the answers the women gave. For example, one of the Muslim groups reported that since they started the SHG, they are now more free to leave the house and engage in economic transactions without the permission of their husbands. But when asked if they had any problems at home, none of them were willing to say anything, which seemed at least suspicious given their previous statements. All in all, however, Mysore provided some interesting insights into the project as well as a nice change of pace.
HD Kote, however, was even more remarkable. Kote is a very small town (if it even qualifies as a town), so our interviews here were our first look at SRFS's rural operations. People in Kote are of course even less accustomed to having foreigners stop by. At one point a restaurant actually opened hours early exclusively to get us breakfast. We were able to do 6 groups in one day in Kote, thanks to the portfolio manager and loan officer who took us around on their motorcycles all day and translated for us. There was a wide array of groups, from default groups who failed to repay because two members ran away with the money, to an all flower-growers group, to an all male group (which, for those of you who are not familiar with microfinance, is incredibly rare - around 97% of microfinance borrowers are female). At one point we were doing two interviews at one time, which needless to say was incredibly difficult, particularly because one of them was the all-male group. HD Kote was the first time we had the opportunity to discuss microinsurance with the groups as well. Because most of these groups were sponsored by MYRADA (SRFS's parent NGO) most of them had bought into a health insurance policy which costs 200 rupees per year ($4) per member. Many of them reported that it had significantly decreased their medical costs, and even one group that was in default was still paying into health insurance. Another interesting finding from the default groups was that while many of them were in default because of overindebtedness (taking multiple loans from various MFIs) the other MFIs were getting repaid before SRFS. This is mainly because other MFIs operate on the Joint Liability Group (JLG) model, meaning that no member in the group can receive another loan if even one member fails to repay. Thus, there is significantly more pressure to repay in JLGs than there is in SHGs.
Given this finding, Yavor and I have decided to spend some of our remaining time in Bangalore doing interviews at other MFIs to better understand their lending models in contrast to Sanghamithra's. We will also be continuing to interview SHGs in Channapattana, Ramangar, and Hosur, all of which are within 50 km of Bangalore. This week we also gathered the rest of Sanghamithra's financials, including their balance sheets for every year from 2002 onwards, which effectively covers all of their years of operation, as well as their Annual Reports. Before we go, we also intend to do some interviews with staff at MYRADA and SRFS to get a more complete picture of their day-to-day operations. With only 24 days remaining in our time here, that should be more than enough to keep us busy right until the end.
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