Kuldip Maity

I have always believed that repaying loans on time has a lot to do with the mind of the borrower. There is no model or perfect equation that can ensure compliance with the repayment schedule if the borrower does not have the right attitude. The social environment also has a significant role in the grooming of borrowers.

At VFS, we have been fortunate that most of our customers adhere to their repayment schedule irrespective of what they come across in life. One such story is about Punam Jha, a customer of Village Financial Services’ Mandideep branch in Madhya Pradesh.

A mother of two, Punam runs a kirana shop. In January this year, Punam approached a VFS JLG or joint lending group for a loan to buy extra stocks and scale up her kirana business. At that time, none of us could foresee the coronavirus pandemic or the lockdown that would be enforced in end-March.

Thankfully, because of the extra funds, Punam had enough stocks to operate until the logistics sector got going fully, and she could get fresh supplies.

While the lockdown hit the entire country, Punam always kept up with her repayment schedule. To her, sticking to the commitment she had made to VFS was of the utmost importance, and she did not want to falter.

Punam is just one of the many VFS borrowers who have been maintaining their commitments, not only in repayment but also in other aspects. It is because of customers with such a great attitude that VFS has been able to touch five lakh families, contributing to their financial prosperity. It is because of this experience that VFS also tries support its customers whenever they face any major unforeseen event. We never have the slightest doubt that our customers will get back on track once business gets back to normal.

We are sure that Punam’s two children will be model citizens if they have been brought up with her ethics and attitude.

The COVID-19 pandemic has confined more than half the population. While the lockdown has been lifted, people still fear meeting each other physically while others continue to avoid going out unless it is essential. With public gatherings such as fairs, carnivals, musical evenings and jatras unlikely to be allowed any time soon, the livelihood of people who depend on such events has become uncertain.

At Village Financial Services, customer welfare is a priority so we avoided face-to-face meetings. But we stayed in touch with our customers over the phone. On one such call, Keka Paul, who makes soft toys, told us how the lockdown affected her. As the mother of a five-year-old daughter, Keka understood that the pandemic lockdown will help in keeping the virus at bay. But the sight of her once-flourishing workshop remaining in darkness for more than two months crushed her spirit temporarily.

Before the pandemic, Keka used to sell her soft toys to distributors, who travelled from fair to fair in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam. With the lockdown, orders dried up. After the government lifted the lockdown, Keka realized that her business model should include sales to proper toy stores. And that she would have to add plastic “Barbie” dolls to her product portfolio.

Now, while soft toys remain her primary product, demand for the new plastic dolls is growing. Hopefully, the autumn festivities will help get her back in full swing.

Fairs and carnivals, both in urban and rural grounds, will come up again. But the new product line – and the extra revenue it fetches - is here to stay. A change that may have come much later had the hardships of the pandemic not forced her into a corner.

I am happy that Keka could make a bad situation better with her spirit.

Keka also spoke of her 5-year-old Ruplekha, who was to get admitted to Class 1 this year. Then the pandemic struck and no one knows when the government will allow the schools to reopen. Till then, Ruplekha will be “product-testing” the toys her mother makes!

Over the years, the Indian subcontinent has been witnessing regular natural disasters like cyclones, flash floods and earthquakes. As lives and livelihoods suffer devastation, the aftermath often takes years of recovery. It goes without saying that the most affected by the devastation is rural India. Acres of fields, cultivated with months of blood and sweat get uprooted or submerged in a matter of minutes. The prior warnings can hardly help save agricultural produce that have not been harvested. As it was with Amphan.

A chat with one of our VFS customers revealed how the twin trouble of the pandemic and Cyclone Amphan jeopardized her life.

Suchitra Mondal and her family dreamt a life of financial stability with the support from VFS. Their primary source of income was from the cultivation of three different kinds of marigolds and hibiscus. As a secondary source, the Mondal family used to be fish sellers in one of North Kolkata's prominent bazaars. The local train commute made it possible to give them access to Kolkata's markets where demands of fish remain perennially high.

The dream was upturned when Cyclone Amphan made landfall in the month of May. Their blooming fields were washed out, so were their hopes. As our conversation progressed, Suchitra reminisced how the day before Amphan came, she prepared to save her marigold buds by constructing fences around the fields. But which bamboo fence could ever hold ground against a super cyclone raging at a speed of 260 km/hr?

Adding to the grief, the pandemic induced lockdown halted the busy local train to an unnatural halt forcing fish sellers like Suchitra Mondal to sell in their local market at subsidized rates.

But what amazes me with our rural customers is their resilience. Even with the setbacks, Suchitra regains her hopes for the festive season as she looks forward to her hibiscus cultivation. Workers have been employed to clean the fields and restart cultivation. But the question remains, will the renewed efforts bloom in time for the Pujas?

Meanwhile, the struggle to stay afloat during the crisis remains. With the help of her husband, Suchitra somehow manages to meet the family expenses through their local fish shop. While the couple struggles to make ends meet, their 12-year-old son patiently waits for the school to reopen. The luxury of online classes is far from the reach of the Mondal family.

The process to rebuild their fields and renew their hopes has started again. Our rural India may get hit by forces beyond control but it will be impossible to keep them down for long.

Indian women are often referred to as Goddess Durga, the Devi with multiple arms. When I, in my current role, visit a VFS borrower and get to know of her personal life, I cannot help but agree with the comparison. It is indeed amazing to know of the various roles our borrower plays, other than being the budding entrepreneur whom we try to help with access to capital.

A daughter, a wife, a home-maker, a mother - she does not avoid any responsibility citing the excuse of the business that she is toiling to build. One might wonder how she manages her time, which after all is always limited to the 24-hour cycle that nature has provided us.

Her daily commute is one of the few activities on which she might be able to save time. While many VFS customers work from home or a location near to it, our employees might need to travel some distance to reach their workplace, a time that could have been used better in some productive activity or rejuvenating rest.

The recent restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic made us look afresh at our processes. We have started challenging all activities that we insisted had to be executed from office and find that many of them can easily be moved to the homes of the team members. While work-from-home is not possible for those who have to run machinery at work, many of our customers depend on manual processes or use small machines such as sewing machines. Easy access to mobile phones has been helping in communication for some time now, making coordination easy.

Accommodating work-from-home comes as a welcome change for team members. The time saved in travel can now be better used for either personal or office work, making it a win-win situation for all. If this becomes the practice, and there is no reason why it should not, we can expect more women joining the workforce, either as entrepreneurs or as employees.

The challenge to status quo has indeed come out as one of the few positives of this pandemic year.