The Second Chapter in Dr. Mukund Naware’s Three-Part Blog Series

A Story from Yesterday

This is a story that happened in October-November 1996.

For a specific purpose, I had arrived at a bank branch in Rajgurunagar, Pune district. Dr. Sane, my colleague, was with me. We had come without prior notice, and since it was a bank branch, we were sure to meet someone. And so it happened.

We saw the bank branch was open, but since business hours hadn’t started yet, there were no customers, and only one employee was visible sitting at a desk working. Seeing our Tata Sierra vehicle arriving and stopping, he immediately came forward, and asked about purpose of our visit. After introducing ourselves and our company, we settled into the chairs in front of him.
At that time, I was working as the General Manager at a large dairy company in Baramati, and our job involved increasing the daily milk supply to our dairy and devising various plans for that objective. Our dairy’s daily capacity was five lakh liters, and fulfilling that much milk was our task.

The important thing was that our project was set up for cheese exports, so we particularly needed cow milk, and the satisfying fact was that cow milk was now available in many districts. The Foundation, Bharatiya Krishi Udyog Pratisthan established in 1970 to increase cow milk production had received widespread response, leading to the birth of crossbred cows in thousands and a noticeable increase in their milk production was evident. Coincidentally, when that Foundation was set up in 1970 by Manibhai Desai, both myself and Dr. Sane had worked as members of the team created by Manibhai Desai; and now, 25 years later, we both  were working together again in the same field but for a dairy company to collect cow milk and increase it’s production.

In the intervening period, in Ahmednagar district, in talukas like Pravaranagar, Shrirampur, Kopargaon, Sangamner, etc., cow milk production had increased, leading to the establishment of cooperative milk producers’ unions, and their own dairies were receiving one and a half to two lakh liters of cow milk daily each. Similarly, in Pune district, the same situation prevailed in Baramati and Indapur, where the cooperative unions were collecting one and a half lakh liters of milk daily. Notably, the milk collected in Baramati taluka was entirely from cows. There were farmers with two to four cows; others maintained herds of ten to twelve cows. One farmer named Tensing had nearly forty crossbred cows. They had even installed machines for milking. Additionally, the Katraj Dairy of the Pune District Cooperative Milk Union received about three lakh liters, and the cooperative union in Akluj, Solapur district, received one and a half lakh liters daily. The Akluj union had established its own modern milk processing plant. All these unions were supplying milk on daily basis to the Mahanand Dairy in Mumbai. Moreover, in areas like Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Pune, where there was a tradition of keeping buffaloes, farmers were showing inclination toward crossbred cows. Through all these sources, we had successfully diverted five lakh liters of milk daily to our dairy company in Baramati. Remarkably, almost all of it was cow milk—and that too from crossbred cows!

But now, the company’s intention was to increase the daily capacity to ten lakh liters, and efforts were underway to quickly boost milk production—and that too from nearby operational areas. In that regard, providing loans to farmers for purchasing lactating cows seemed like a quick option that appealed to them.

However, purchasing cows or buffaloes through loans was such a thing that it left plenty of room for fraud! Hence, the doubt whether the animals were actually acquired. Even if someone was honest, there was a high chance of being cheated by traders during market purchases. If that happened, the expected milk production wouldn’t materialize. Moreover, if the animal had diseases like mastitis or conception issues, those would only become apparent later, and the farmer would get frustrated during treatment. As a result, on one hand, the farmer became debt-ridden, and on the other, the bank saw rising non-performing assets. For these reasons, banks weren’t enthusiastic about such lending. Overall, the question remained: who benefited from such loans? Even in that situation back then, when we learned that loans for purchasing crossbred cows had been successfully provided in the Rajgurunagar area, our purpose was to go there and examine their work experience.

Now, we began our discussion with that bank employee in Rajgurunagar.
“We’ve heard you’ve provided quite a lot of loans for cow purchases in this area.. We want the same to happen in the Baramati region, so we’ve come to learn from your experience,” I said.
“We have provided such loans, that’s correct… but all of this was done through the ‘Chaitanya’ Trust. They have established over five hundred Self Help Groups of women in this taluka,” he said.
Hearing that figure, I could feel the scale of that work. We were stunned.
“That’s exactly what we’ve come to learn more about,” I said.

Then he began providing the information.

For the past few years, efforts to link women’s Self Help Groups with micro finance had been underway. Muhammad Yunus had successfully demonstrated the experiment in Bangladesh through Grameen Bank and the World Bank had recommended that pattern it be implemented worldwide in the same way. Accordingly, in India, NABARD had instructed nationalized banks to devise plans for generously providing loans to women’s self-help groups without requiring collateral, but with sufficient safeguards in the procedures to ensure loan recovery.

“The first condition for this work is that there must be an NGO to coordinate.. “ the employee said. “That’s why the ‘Chaitanya’ Trust is here. They form women’s  Self Help Groups and then we come in picture.”
This fundamental difference caught our attention; otherwise, would any bank have even entertained a group of fifteen to twenty village women?
“There’s one Dr. Sudha Kothari here. She’s the one running the Chaitanya Trust. You’ll have to meet her. Then you’ll get all the information..” the employee said.

As our discussion continued, the road outside started getting busy with stream of villagers walking. It was a road coming from a village and heading towards the taluka market. Even though our backs were towards the road, the bank employee could see the traffic on the road.

“Hey, there is Heera Bai coming.. You’re lucky. Now you’ll get a lot of information from her..” the employee said.  Getting up from his seat, he went outside, called out to the woman, and invited her in.
When we turned around, we saw a woman wearing a nine-yard green saree. She had her pallu over her head and a large kumkum mark on her forehead. Dark-skinned, with a flat nose. She placed the large basket on her head outside on the platform near steps and entered.

“Come, sit Heera Bai. These gentlemen have come. Answer whatever questions they ask,” the employee said. Heera Bai sat on a bench behind us, and we turned our chairs toward her side. She wiped sweat on her face with her pallu and was ready to answer our questions.

We already knew her name. Now she gave information about the village. A self-help group had been formed in her village a few years ago. Before that, a facilitator called by word Sahyogini, from the ‘Chaitanya’ Trust had come to the village, and after repeated meetings, the group was formed. Initially Heera Bai was just a member, but now she had become the president. Heera Bai’s husband was a Worker unloading and loading gunny sacks from trucks outside a grocery store in market place. He earned fifty paise per gunny sack. Heera Bai’ also worked on daily wages. They had two daughters at home. When joining the self help group, it was decided that each member would save fifty paise daily. But she wasn’t sure if she could manage that daily saving. She discussed it with her husband, and they both decided to do it. With commitment of fifteen rupees a month as saving, fifteen women joined the group, and their collective savings were deposited in the bank. After a year, when a few thousand rupees had accumulated, the women started taking small loans from it to meet their needs. With three percent (!) interest per month, no woman took unnecessary loans, and they didn’t default on repayments. The women held meetings at least once a month at night, and attendance was mandatory for every member. The Chaitanya Trust had provided training on how to maintain the group’s accounts, and so on. Heera Bai shared all this information.

When a decent amount had accumulated in the self help group’s account the bank approved a loan of sixty to seventy thousand rupees.
This provided the women with capital to purchase tools or equipment. For them it opened the opportunity to start a small business.

The important thing now was that Heera Bai had taken Rupees eight-thousand loan from her Self Help Group and purchased a crossbred cow. Being from the economically weaker section, she also received a government subsidy for this purchase. Fortunately, the cow she brought home came with a female calf. Now, Heera Bai started getting milk, and she began selling it to the village society. The milk business picked up. On the other hand, she continued repaying the loan. After six months, she could take a loan for a second cow. She received a subsidy again when buying that cow. By the time the first cow’s loan was nearly repaid, the first female calf had grown into a cow. But since keeping three animals at home wasn’t feasible, she sold the first cow and used the money to buy gold! In the subsequent period, she fully repaid the second loan, and now, as the cow’s progeny increases, she sells them as and when convenient, she said. Overall, the milk business was running smoothly, supplemented occasionally by selling a calf or cow—this was the information Heera Bai provided.

Hearing Heera Bai’s story made us feel good. The milk business had certainly boosted her household. Her elder daughter had studied up to twelfth standard. But now, she said she would study up to fifteenth standard and then get married. The savings group had brought a major change in the lives of those member women. In addition they had also secured a contract from the gram panchayat to pave and repair the road from their village to Rajgurunagar. All the member women had toiled to complete that road work themselves painstakingly.  Because it is they who had to carry the heavier loads on that road, having it properly paved was their essential need. What an act of unity!

That day, after leaving the bank, we went to the Chaitanya Trust’s office, but couldn’t meet Dr. Sudha Kothari. We met her later, and the nature of her work became even clearer. Many women in the Self Help Groups she established had purchased crossbred cows, but all those decisions were made by the women themselves, she said. No one had forced them—this was important. This meant no plan had been imposed from above to make them buy cows. From this, I felt that self-help was the secret to their success. In comparison, our dairy company wasn’t an NGO. However, they certainly wanted thousands of cows to be acquired, and realizing it couldn’t be imposed from above, we had to abandon the idea of taking up savings groups.

But this gave us a chance to see the work done by the Chaitanya Trust. From this, it’s clear that 25 years earlier, the program Manibhai Desai started for crossbreeding cows with a specific goal, had received responses everywhere from various quarters. Additionally, the Animal Husbandry Department and various cooperative milk producers’ unions had supported the crossbreeding program by running artificial insemination centers in their areas. Through all these efforts, the proportion of crossbred cows and milk production had increased everywhere. Farmers of all sizes were benefiting from it, but crossbred cows had also proven beneficial for women like Heera Bai, who did manual labor to earn living. The Year was 1996.

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