A generally beleaguered microfinance industry was eagerly waiting for Yezdi Malegam for deliverance. Any conversation about the microfinance business would end with the expectation that the Malegam committee would deliver a healthy dose of oxygen to the choking microfinance industry. The report was expected to be the panacea for all that ails microfinance in India. The report, which came out on Monday, disappoints not only in its inability to meet these...

Microcredit is losing its halo in many developing countries. Microcredit was once extolled by world leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as a powerful tool that could help eliminate poverty, through loans as small as $50 to cowherds, basket weavers and other poor people for starting or expanding businesses. But now microloans have prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries. In December, the prime minister of...

The year 2010 was a tumultuous one for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) in India. It began with the highly successful SKS Microfinance public issue, which prompted other prominent MFIs to announce similar plans. It ended with the tumult in Andhra Pradesh which was marked by the state’s legislation to regulate the sector, severely impairing its ability to survive. MFI recoveries are down and they, in turn, have fallen behind in their...

On December 15, the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly cleared a bill to regulate Microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the state. The bill replaces an ordinance issued in October following 54 suicide deaths allegedly due to coercive methods of loan recovery by MFIs (see ‘Death by Default’, Down To Earth, November 30, 2010). The bill mandates MFIs to be registered with the district authority to collect installments at the panchayat office and restricts...

Tamil Nadu has become the second largest state after Andhra Pradesh in the self-help group (SHG)-bank linkage programme launched by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). In the state, 209,197 SHGs were credit linked with a financial assistance of Rs 2,791.65 crore in 2009-10, taking the cumulative number of SHGs credit linked to 852,791 (including repeat doses) with a bank loan of Rs 9,394.70 crore. Nabard said that a...