Full credit

“There are plenty of people who want small loans to start a business or something but cannot approach the bank due to the paperwork involved. Usually banks would never lend them money since they neither have anything to mortgage nor the necessary documents. Or often the amount may be too small. So what does a person who wants say,merely Rs 20,000 as loan,do? This is where our organisation steps in,” says Nath.

His organisation,Sunmarg,was started in 2004. At present it has nearly 10,000 people who are field-workers. These are the people,he says,who are the ones who will never get any job anywhere since they are either school drop-outs or are inadequately qualified.

“The government will not do anything to help this large pool of unemployed people and they would never get jobs with it. Here,at least,they are able to earn their living,” says Nath.

The micro-credit system works on a chain basis taking money from members and pooling it all together to help others. And people,irrespective of their background,are given money — from the street hawker to a person rearing cattle or even a person selling wares in the weekly village haat.

“We have already invested Rs 45 crore so far in giving credit to nearly two lakh people,” he says.

With field workers spread across most of the districts in south Bengal,he says that at present there are around 5,000 such field workers in South 24-Parganas; 1,000 in Burdwan and around 200-300 people in various districts. Ironically,he says out of the various people they have provided credits to,only around two per cent of 100 people have defaulted.

“The recovery rate is usually between 96 to 98 per cent. Of course,there are times we give credit even though we know they will not be able to pay us back,like when we gave credit to a cancer-stricken person even though we knew he was dying and his family did not have the means to pay us back. But such cases are rare,” he says.

However,it is not merely micro-crediting that Sunmarg is involved with,having also formed a smaller society to help children with thalassaemia from new-born to 11 to 12 years old.

“We pay for blood transfusion,medicines,doctor’s fees and treat around 50 children each month. Of course,they are not one-time treatment as thalassaemia-affected children need to be in constant care,” he says.

He has devised a unique way of collecting money from people. He employs a team of field workers,in this case mainly women,who approach travellers in stations and long-distance trains for donations. Whatever is collected is used to treat these children.

“We are also trying to set up a 125-bed hospital in South 24-Parganas near Joynagar police station and are approaching donors for help. We have realised that the situation in South 24-Parganas is most critical,” he says.

In between helping out people,Nath says,he also manages some tax consultancy; after all he says he has to run his own family.