Negative Area, Muslim, Ghoragacha and Mumbra

I was going through the mails of Members of Solution Exchange Forum and suddenly came across a mail by Dr. Arabinda Mitra. I remember that he was my teacher in Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya (B.C.K.V) where I did my Graduation in Agriculture. Sir is from Department of Agril. Economics. I was curious to see that Sir has been associated with SHGs Movement in a remote village called “Ghoragacha” which was close to B.C.K.V. So I decided to write a mail to Sir and asked about the details. Sir was kind enough to reply me back the very next day and after going through his mail, I was surprised and excited too.

I am reproducing below Sir’s mail

“I shall write in brief here about the Self Help Groups of Ghoragacha. We started an informal school at Ghoragacha, a nearby village to Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Benagl to educate the farmers about practices of agriculture. The school was funded and supported by UPL Company. This was the first kind of school in India. Later this model has been replicated by state government, central government and others. This type of school was set up in many states. I was associated with the school from the very beginning. The philosophy of such school and mode of operation was mooted in the department of agricultural Economics. In fact I was heading the department that time. We included Farm management and cost aspects in the curriculum of the school.

One day I was listening to the lecture delivered by Dr.H.Sen (Agronomy). He was telling about OL (elephant foot.). I was astonished to see high return from OL. At the end of lecture I asked about 60 learners whether they are prepared to grow ol in the coming season. Only two hands were raised. Upon questioning I came to know that to harvest one bigha of ol- it requires at least Rs.20,000 /,which these people can not bear. Then I asked for financial support from banks or other sources. I found that this particular village is blacklisted. UBI (Jaguli) branch or the Co-operatives are not willing to give loan to them. It is very difficult to take loan from local money lenders. They charge more than 50% per annum. The farmers were really poor. Their source of income was only from land. The positive thing was that they are most efficient farmers in the region.

I asked them I am sorry that today are not in apposition to cultivate ol. But in the coming years you can grow more valuable crops, if you are united and stand by yourself with out depending upon external source. They agreed. I stared with the lessons of forming SHGs. Ultimately they did. More than 30 Shgs are in operation in this village. Women have formed SHGs. It was also my challenge as because this village is 100% dominated by Muslims.

Today I am proud that they are cultivating the most valuable crops ,viz, Guava. This has become the second Baruipur. People are happy. With development of SHGs there have been tremendous social and economic changes. Banks are now coming to lend money. Upon evaluation they told me that money lenders are not seen in the areas. Now, they put the question” Sir, what we will do with money. We have money and now need other things to be done by us”. Those SHGs are not dependent on any external organizations. They have built up themselves. They are running in their own ways. I was with them for constant two years. Then I left to see whether they can do themselves or not. The thing is that they can. Results of Shgs at Ghoragacha have been visited by many scholars”

Sir’s mail reminds me about the place “Mumbra”, a sub urban town in outer Mumbai. It is also considered as Negative Area and thats why No Bank gives loan to people of Mumbra. The interest rate was as high as 10% per month. Ironically both Ghoragacha and Mumbra are dominated by Muslim People. Then I searched internet and came to know many Muslim areas are considered as Negative Area and if one area has been tagged as Negative area, then nobody really takes the pain to look into whether it is right to continue the trend or not years after years. I could not figure out the reason.

Do Muslim are so risky for lending? Is there anything to do with their religion with lending money?