8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

1/6

8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

2/6

8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

3/6

Geographical isolation - they live in cloistered,exclusive, remote and inhospitable areas such as hillsand forests,

Backwardness - their livelihood is based on primitive

agriculture, a low-value closed economy with a lowlevel of technology which leads to their poverty. Theyhave low levels of literacy and health.

Distinctive culture, language and religion -communities have developed their own distinctive

culture, language and religion. Shyness of contact they have a marginal degree of

contact with other cultures and people

8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

4/6

Tribal population in India

The 2001 census put the number of personsbelonging to Scheduled Tribes in India at 84.3

million which is 8.2% of the total population.

There were about 60 major tribal groupsaccounting for about 80% of the total tribal

population of India in 1991.

There were over 100 medium tribal groups

and 130 minor tribal groups. About 60 otherswere numerically insignificant.

8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

5/6

Why Tribes Need Credit

8/13/2019 Credit Requirements of Tribes

6/6

Smt. Poleramma, an illiterate scheduled tribe woman earned her livelihood, since

childhood, by selling iron scrap. Later, she married a man engaged in the same

activity, but found it extremely difficult to support her family consisting of three

sons and three daughters and resorted to begging for food and clothes. However, to

make both ends meet, she began knitting/weaving bamboo baskets and selling them

but found that the income was meager. On hearing about the MFI, she joined the

group and took the first loan of Rs. 4,000 and started a scrap shop. She cleared the

loan and availed of eight successive loans and utilized them as follows: the second

loan of Rs. 10,000 for investment in business, the third loan of Rs. 15,000 for

purchasing a kutccha house, the fourth loan of Rs. 50,000 to clear all outside debts,

the fifth of Rs. 60,000 for investing in hair-selling business, the sixth loan of Rs.70,000 to purchase 10 mobile carts, the seventh loan of Rs. 1,00,000 to again clear

debts, the eighth loan of Rs. 3,50,000 to construct a pucca house and the ninth loan

of Rs. 2,50,000 was utilised for iron scrap business. There was a complete

metamorphosis in the life of Poleramma from almost a beggar to a woman of

substance - an entrepreneur and busy woman engaged in multiple businessactivities. At the time of the study, as an entrepreneur, Poleramma headed her

business activities and was also the leader of the group. Subsequently, she got all

her six children married and got her three sons involved in her business activities.

Polerammas case proved that MFI credit enabled a very poor woman living a

hand to mouth existence to become an entrepreneur, leading a highly successfullife