By Soumya Mukund, Arpit Paurush and Dharmesh Ba
Short Story:
Padma is a married woman who has been staying in a village near Tumkur for the last five years post her marriage. She lives in a joint family with husband, son and her in-laws. Her husband has recently left the bar cashier job as he took the guarantee for his friend’s loan which was defaulted and her husband was forced to pay the loan amount. Though her husband paid the amount for two months, he was not able to pay further due to lack of funds.
Loan guarantee:
It’s a common practice is unsecured lending to guarantee for a borrowers repayment of the loan to the lender (mostly an informal money lender). Under the case where the borrower fails to repay the loan amount, the guaranteer is forced to the pay back the amount to the lender.
Read the first part of this story here:
Assets:
Conversations from the transcript:
S: Do you own gold?
P: No, i just own one chain which i am wearing.S: Do you own a property?
P: Yes , we have 50 plants . My father in law looks after it. We grow coconuts. If there is a good rate. we can sell them. Otherwise therewill be no profit. The rates are very low.S: Do you own cattle?
P: Yes, we have one cow and one 5 month old calf. My mother in law looks after it. The money we get from milk is sufficient to maintain the second calf.
Loans:
- Padma’s husband has an aspiration to start his own business by taking the bar on lease. He wants to take a loan to run his own bar.
- Padma’s husband had taken the guarantee of his friend’s loan. He was unable to repay the loan because of which he had paid the mortgages for two months. However, he left the job because of the inability to pay the loan due to the scarcity of money.
- Padma family took the chit fund loan from the Maruti sangha associated with Canara bank. She took the loan on 2% rate of interest per month, and she is paying Rs.400 (5.44$) per month E.M.I for the same.
- Padma has an aspiration to start a business of tailoring, she wants to pursue a tailoring course before starting a business. For the machine, she wants to take a loan.
Conversation from the transcript:
S: Have you heard of chitfund?
P: Means? Oh yes, we have a maruthi sangha from canara bank. We had taken a loan. We pay Rs. 400(5.44$) in a month, all of us take the money at 2% Interest.S: Who all are the earning members in the family?
P: My Brother in law goes to the on Kb Cross. My husband uses to work as a bar cashier. It has been a week since he left the job.S: What was the reason for leaving the job?
P: My husband had taken a guarantee for the loan of his friend. He was not able to repay the loan, so my husband had paid the mortgage for two months, but due to the lack of money at the house, he was not able to pay it further. So he left the job.S: Do you have any bank loan?
P: No but my husband wants to take a loan for business. He wants to take a loan to run a bar on lease. Money is the biggest problem if we can accomdate it then he will proceed. Otherwise he won’t. He will look for another bar cashier job.S: Do you have any question for us?
P: Please help us somehow. if you could lend us a tailoring machine on a loan. it will be a great help for us.
Chit fund process to join:
[1]
Chitfund: A chit fund is a type of rotating savings and credit association system practiced in India.Chit fund schemes may be organized by financial institutions, or informally among friends, relatives, or neighbours.In some variations of chit funds, the savings are for a specific purpose.
- People from the community had told the Padma family about the scheme because the community was looking to add more people to the sangha group. The community has mentioned that they could get the loan on a 2% rate of interest through the sangha group. To proceed further in the process, Padma had discussed the same with her husband, and then they joined the group.
Conversation from the transcript:
S: Have you heard of chitfund?
P: Means? Oh yes, we have a maruthi sangha from canara bank. We had taken a loan. We pay Rs. 400(5.44$) in a month, all of us take the money at 2% Interest.S: How did you learn and join the chit fund sangha?
P: The people at the sangha told us, They need 10 more people. there was 7 people only. We hadn’t join any sangha till that time.S: How did the sangha forms?
P: They asked us if we would join, they will provide loans, we can make saving through the group, Repay the loan at 2% rate of interest.
P: For the decision, I had discussed the same with my husband. Then we had joined the group.
Savings & Investment:
- Saving is limited in the house only Padma’s brother in law is able to save a sum of Rs. 15,000 (203.85$) in a bank.
- Padma’s husband has saved a sum of Rs. 1lakh(1,358.93$)through group saving in the sangha.
- Due to the lack of money, no one in the family had an R.D or F.D in the bank.
Conversation from the transcript:
S: Who is paying the money to the sangha?
P: My husband. it has been 1.5 year. we have managed to save Rs.1lakh as a group. We can take the money we want to. we have not withdrawn the money yet.S:Does anyone in the house park their money at the bank?
P: My brother in law might have. He had made a saving of Rs.15000 in the bank.
Insurance:
- Padma’s Husband & brother in law had a Life insurance plan. They had taken an insurance plan through a Lic agent in the community.
- None of the family members has either vehicle insurance, health insurance, and property insurance.
Conversation from the transcript:
S: Have you heard of an insurance?
P: LIC?S: Yes? i am talking about LIC?
P: My husband & brother in law had an LIC.S: How did your family had learn about the LIC?
P: There was an LIC agent who came and told us about it. That’s when we had paid.S: Are you planning to buy and insurance?
P: No. we don’t have money.S: Do you have a health insurance?
P: NoS: Do you have a property insurance?
P: No
Technology:
- Padma’s family had three phones in the house, one is of her husband which she uses to talk with her brother. The other two phones are of Padma’s brother and fathers-in-law.
- The usage of the internet is there in husband and brother-in-law phone. limited to WhatsApp and Facebook. They use Whatsapp calling feature on Whatsapp.
Conversation from the transcript:
S:Who all in the family owns a phone?
P: My husband, brother-in-law and Father-in-law.S:Who recharges the phone?
P: Each one does it by themselves.S: Does anyone uses the internet on phone?
P: My husband and brother in law have a internet, the usage of internet is to use whatsapp for calling and facebook.
Goals and Lifestyle:
- Padma has an aspiration to start a business of tailoring. She expects Buzzindia to provide free training on tailoring. so that she could start the business.
- She also wants help to buy the tailoring machine on loan to start a business.
- Providing a good education is the life goal of Padma. she wants her son to become a doctor or a Police officer. She believes that her son’s education would one day uplift them from poverty.
- She wants her son to be either a doctor or a police officer because this role is of public services and she believes public services often help the community or people when they are in trouble. She wants her son to do the same in the future.
Conversation from the transcript:
S:Do you have a tailoring machine?
P: NoS: What is your life goal?
P: BuzzIndia is going to provide us free tailoring classes. I want to learn and setup a machine at home.P: I want to provide a good education to my child. i want him to become a doctor or police officer. so he could work for the community.
S: Why specifically so?
P: Because there is a public services in this 2 professions. Doctor saves life. i like that. A lot of people who are in trouble are helped by the police, thats why i like them.S: Have you taken any steps in this regards?
P: No, I do not know tailoring yet, what is the use of that? with my little knowledge i cannot do anything. People will only pay us if we do it well. So I want to learn and then do it.
Tv Programmes:
Aha Movements:
- Her strength is the attitude and aspiration to never give up in critical situations. She wants to start a business of tailoring to improve the financial condition of the family.
- Despite the lack of money at her house, she has an aspiration to provide good education to the child with the hope that education would uplift their lives from poverty.
- Her priority to give a good education to the child despite the scarcity of money at house.
- Padma’s bonding with family is her strength which is reflected in the incident when her husband has left the job and her brother in law is taking care of the household expenses. She believes that as a family they could conquer every situation together.
This interview is broken into two parts. The first part of the interview talks about Padma’s family, background, income, and expenses.
In meanwhile check our other series called ‘Decoding Bharat’, where we interview people from emerging economies in India.
Credits:
Interviewed and transcribed by
Soumya Mukund
Edited and published for Medium by
Arpit Paurush & Dharmesh Ba
About the research:
This documentation is a result of the in-person interview along with the participants’ consent. The interviews might be conducted in their native languages and translated to English in the best possible way to reach a large audience.
Disclaimer: The names and organisations in this documentation are masked to honour the privacy of the participant.
About D91 labs:
This research was executed and documented by D91 labs. D91 labs is an open-source initiative by setu.co to help Bharat build great fin-tech products. We organize and publish user research, insights, and frameworks for fin-tech in India. Please follow us on medium for more exciting stories and insights on Bharat.
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