A large number of women belonging to the Self Help Groups (SHG) are now believed to have fallen victim of the entrapments of the sprawling chit fund business in the state.
After the Saradha scam came into light, reports are coming from various districts those women members of SHG had lost a major portion of their savings by investing in the chit fund companies including Saradha group.
According to Tarun Debnath, a senior leader of The Self Help Group Promotional Forum - a non-government platform which works among the SHG workers and tries to build awareness - says that, already, reports are reaching Kolkata from various districts that SHG members have invested a large sum of their surplus fund in chit fund companies with a hope of earning a higher return. A good number of them also taken out the supporting fund given by the government and kept that with chit fund companies. Now, with the Saradha company going bust and other chit fund companies are refusing to make the repayment at short notice, the SHG members are also realising the fact that their savings are gone. "It is a big setback for the SHG movement, the full extent of the damage is yet to be known by us," laments Debnath.
According to the Forum members, already reports have come from Purulia, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia and Jalpaiguri districts where SHG members have been badly affected by the chit fund fraud. The Forum has started circulating posters and leaflets among the SHG women to build awareness about the risk of investing their hard earned money into chit funds. Also, it appealed to the government for crating effecting system by making small saving schemes attractive enough so that the rural poor do not go to chit fund companies. Tarun Debnath observes, since the Government of India has reduced the interest rates in various small saving schemes in post offices, thus making the schemes unattractive, the absence of any reliable mechanism for deposit mobilisation in the rural areas, the poor were easily trapped by these chit fund companies with their Collective Investment Schemes (CIS).
Dr Ashok Sarkar, a senior executive of RDI, New Delhi, who has a long experience of working in West Bengal in the field of rural development, points out, "Assocham has pegged the amount of money siphoned off in the chit fund scam at Rs 22,000 crore. Obviously, there is an absence of appropriate mechanism otherwise, this fund would have gone to share market, mutual funds and other schemes which are under proper regulatory system."
In West Bengal, the SHG movement gained momentum in 2009-10, but later started stagnating as the new government did not take active interest and failed to give the due impetus.
At least eight million women have been mobilised under the SHG movement over the years. The women involved in the SHGs were engaged in handling the midday meal service for the rural schools. They took upon themselves the task of procuring cereals and other necessary ingredients, cooking and serving the meals to the students on regular basis. Besides that, the SHG women are engaged in trading of food grain and other essential commodities. Starting with nominal seed money collected from the members and complementary government support the SHGs became not only an additional source of income for the women, it also liberated them. But, now a good number of them are on the verge of losing their economic freedom owing to the collapse of the chit fund business.
