450
Self help groups formed and supported, with 6000 members
20
Villages supported in improved farming methods in Kodaikanal Hills
600
Home toilets have been built by our groups under Government Schemes
About Us
Our organization, India Nirman Sangh, has been working in the hills around Kodaikanal and Palani in Tamilnadu, India since 2004. In these fifteen years, we have been working primarily for women’s development in the backward hill villages and the towns of Kodaikanal and Palani.
Winning the trust of people in the areas we work in, we form small thrift and savings groups (called Self Help Groups) and then arrange for microcredit through local banks for these groups. The groups use this money to give loans to their own members who may need the loan for a variety of reasons including repaying loans taken from moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates, a sickness in the family, a festival, education fees, buying fertilizer, a wedding etc. Peer pressure among the members ensures a very high recovery rate.
Currently, India Nirman Sangh has formed and is currently supporting more than 450 Self Help Groups (SHGs) among the women in some of the villages around Kodaikanal and Palani. Each group consists of between twelve and twenty women. Hence a total of around 6000 women are members of our groups. So far, INS has facilitated loans worth more than thirty crore rupees for our groups from various Indian banks. Currently, we are business correspondents of NABFINS, a financial organization set up by the Central Government specifically to finance microloans. On our recommendation, they provide microloans to our SHGs.
Over time, the groups also begin to take up local issues such as sanitation, drinking water supply, the problems in the local ration shop, etc. and they are often able to bring about positive changes. They also help in the implementation of some government schemes. They also voluntarily came forward in 2007 in three panchayats to take up and implement a government scheme to build toilets for each home and eliminate open defecation. So far more than 600 home toilets have been built by our groups under these government schemes.
Some of the groups have also started tiny businesses – running grocery shops, ration shops, tea shops, distilling and bottling eucalyptus oil, processing, and packaging Kodaikanal coffee, manufacturing inexpensive sanitary napkins, etc. India Nirman Sangh incubates these businesses and helps them run profitably and professionally.