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Conservative Society:
We also found that some societies were very conservative
into implementing new thinking. They have decided to implement old traditions
and policies. This is another reason for low savings as they do not want to see the
benefits of high savings.
The interest rates that they charged for internal loans were either 24% or 12 %. About
90% of members charged 24% interest. This was mandated by the NGO. Some
progressive groups reduced the interest rate stating that they empathise with members.
However no SHG implemented differential rates to different members. In this sense they
believed in equality no matter what the reason for loan was. They also found that they
did not have any conflicts in deciding to whom the loan should go to. It was decided on
priority basis. We also found that most SHGs allowed for a corpus collection between
Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 40,000 per member. Once this amount was reached they gave the
money collected back to the member and started a new corpus with savings. All in all the
management of savings by the member was rule driven – from the NGO. All matters
from book keeping, interest rates, withdrawal from corpus and managing the savings had
rules and the members followed the same. Conflicts were hence rare and if any was
solved by the NGO.
