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2nd visit to Sindhudurg
October 12, 2007
Anooya Tai , Aba and I decided to go to Dhalavali, Malpe and Mancha. These places have majority of Muslim population. The people here either do fishing in the Khadi (riverside) or are involved in related occupations like net weaving.
At Dhalavali, we called a meeting at a school. People here have for generations been doing fishing in Khadi and weaving nets. But off late, both these occupations have suffered a setback because the fish in Khadi have been depleting. The fish catch from areas like Vijaydurg & Deogad (places adjacent to the sea) is more in quantity and hence cheaper; so people prefer that over the Khadi fish. A truck carrying fish from Deogad comes in everyday early morning, the womenfolk buy these fish and move door to door in the nearby villages to sell the fish. They manage upto Rs 50 a day in cash or in kind (in exchange for rice).
People from Dhalavali cannot go out in sea as they have small boats and it is far from their village. During rain, they use hand nets to catch fish and during the rest of the year, they use small wooden boats (which can accommodate three persons) to catch fish. They make Rs 50-100 per person a day which again is not assured. They do not even have enough money to buy new nets and continue using old worn out nets and hence not able to catch enough fish. Many people weave nets and supply it to fishermen in Vijaydurg, Deogad and even Mumbai. This trade is dying because now there are machine made nets and hence the demand for handmade nets has gone down. Some people here have taken up tailoring and also work as construction labor.
People wish to expand their business but do not have enough money to do so. Banks are not easily accessible. Dhalavali is in the Devgad Taluka and a Bank operates out of the taluka head office which is far off from the village. Moreover, they have no collaterals to offer for the loans. They do not own any land. They have very small houses and in most cases the lands on which houses are built also do not belong to them.
This problem of non-availability of formal loans is not new to this area. This is the problem which is being addressed by the microfinance interventions. But in that also, so far the model has been that moneys are initially lent to a group for peer pressure is the only collateral that the microfinance money providers have. What I gathered from my interactions with the people at Dhalavali is that they would prefer to take loans on individual responsibility rather than in a group. Further, they would like to have a system wherein they have the flexibility with regards to the timing of repayment. For example, for 4 out of 12 months, their earnings decrease on account of lean fishing season. At such times, they even find it difficult to survive so paying back loans or interest thereof becomes a huge financial burden. The second point can be taken care of. In fact a lot of MFIs are now customizing their loan offerings to take care of this constraint. But as regards the first constraint, i.e. the hesitation on part of the people to form groups for the purpose of borrowing money, I am not aware of as to how this can be addressed.
Then we moved on to Malpe & Mancha, it appeared to me that Malpe and Mancha were worse off than Dhalavali. As it was the festive time (Eid time), it was not possible for us to meet many people in Malpe and Mancha. But as all the three places are by the riverside, there problems are similar. In Malpe, we were told that after 12th, the youngsters try to pursue higher education in cities like Mumbai, but are not able to meet the expenses and are hence forced to give up studies and take up jobs. In Mancha, we were told that earlier the people here used to make wooden boats and supplied them to fishing communities in Mumbai but now as the boats made of fiber are available which are more durable and lightweight; fishermen prefer those over the wooden boats.
The Muslim communities of these villages have a taluka level (at Deogad) central committee and any initiatives / activities are taken up in these villages in discussion with the committee. The idea is that any activity for social benefit should be taken up for all the villages and thus help a larger population.