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Chapter 11: Extent of Voluntary Savings above the mandated
savings
11.1 Introduction
Do members save beyond the mandated amount? What is the extent of this saving? We
tried to understand the avenues where they saved in. This chapter examines the research
question “What is the extent of voluntary savings done by members beyond the mandated
savings of groups?” (TOR 6)
The amount saved is decided by the SHG members in a democratic manner. The group
members decide on the amount and the frequency of collection. After a certain corpus is
formed, say in a year the group starts lending. All groups that we saw kept meticulous
accounts about the group savings, individual savings, borrowings and interest rate. This
chapter also looks at the question “How do the group members manage voluntary savings
within the group –differential rates of interest, part of SHG corpus, withdrawals on
demand or otherwise, complexities in accounting etc?” (TOR 7)
11.2 Extent of Savings
In the previous chapter we discussed the number of members opting for other avenues of
savings. In this section we understand the extent of this saving on an average.
