The village Tengani, about 30 KMs away from District
Head Quarter Town Golaghat, is situated inside the Nambar
Reserve Forest. There is no all weather roads or railway communication
from the village to any nearby towns or market place. The
inhabitants of the village are people migrated from different
places of Assam who lost their land due to erosion or otherwise.
There are about 300 families in the village without any discrimination
of caste, creed or race among them. There is a Village Unnanyan
Committee in the village. Cultivation is their main occupation,
but they can not earn their livelihood out of the income from
it since they use to cultivate only Sali paddy during the
monsoon keeping the land unutilized for remaining period of
the year due to lack of fund for cultivation. Therefore, most
of the villagers go to the nearby towns for working as daily
wage labourer.
Jamuguri Branch of Lakhimi Gaonlia Bank, is located at a distance
of 7 kms. away from the village. In the month of May, 2004,
the President and the Secretary of the Village Unnanyan Committee
came to the said Branch to enquire about loan facility for
their members. It is worthwhile to mention that they could
not be accommodated with any Crop Loan or Kisan Credit Card
since they did not posses ownership or any right as lessee
or share copper on the land they cultivate. Therefore, it
was decided to accommodate their need in alternative way by
forming Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) among them. To start
with, the Bank officials visited the village and organized
sensitization meeting with the villagers and also had one-to-one
interaction with 5 to 6 influential members of each group
to appraise of their motivation, commitment and competence.
The branch formed 10 Joint Liability Groups among them comprising
44 members and granted Crop Loan for Rs.1.04 lakh for raising
Sali paddy and vegetables during the financial year 2004-05.
After harvesting, they repaid the Bank dues in full out of
their income from the sale proceeds of their produces. Now
there are 15 nos. of JLGs comprising 127 members and these
groups have availed loan for Rs.3.04 lakhs including repeat
loan from the Bank for raising different crops. The bank has
got new avenue of banking under this new concept and the beneficiaries
are also happy to get a helping hand in their need for raising
different seasonal crops to increase their income for livelihood.
Soon after successful implementation of the scheme in Jamuguri
Branch, the concept, idea and motive of JLG was discussed
with the officials of other branches of the Bank and could
be extended to some other branches also. The loan granted
under JLG(Joint Liability Group) Scheme by the Bank during
the current year (2005-06) upto October 2006 is Rs.225.54
lacs extending loan facility to 1972 members through 329 JLG
Groups in 47 branches of the bank- with 95% recovery rate.
