ASA-Grama Vidiyal offers a combination of financial products aimed at the economic empowerment of poor women. The collateral-free loan products are offered to members in a graduated manner, the amount of loan increasing with every loan cycle. ASA-GV also offers life insurance to its members, in collaboration with private insurance companies.

ASA-GV is in the process of developing a comprehensive social security scheme for its members, offering them and their family members, the benefit of life as well as accident insurance and old age annuity similar to pension offered in the organized sector.

In addition to financial products, ASA-GV also offers several credit plus and beyond credit services aimed at the social welfare of the poor. These services include education, training and capacity building, rights-based lobbying and advocacy, business development services etc..
The product mix of ASA-GV reflects the successful integration of social development efforts and microfinance products, following the innovative and integrated approach followed by ASA-GV.

General loan
ASA-GV offers collateral-free loans of small amounts to women entrepreneurs, belonging to poor families aimed at meeting their needs for working capital and for initial investment. The loans are disbursed to women organised in groups of five members, with the other four members acting as guarantor for the member availing loan. Loan repayments are made in weekly centre meetings, facilitated by the Field Managers of ASA-GV.

Seasonal loan
The Seasonal Loan product was introduced after the Focus Group Discussions and Client Satisfaction Surveys conducted as part of the Practitioner Learning Programme (PLP) project revealed that ASA-GV members had to access local money-lenders during special occasions such as important festivals (Deepavali, Christmas, Pongal etc.) and at the time of admission and re-admission of their children in school.

The Seasonal Loan was disbursed during Deepavali, Christmas and Pongal, to members having a proper repayment history and attendance in centre meetings. It is planned to continue to disburse the Seasonal Loan to such members for other important festivals and at the time of school admissions.

                     

Savings Products
ASA-GV offers the savings product, to encourage the savings habit among the members of ASA-GV who find it difficult to access mainstream commercial banks for the same. Savings are collected on a weekly basis from the members, with the amount of weekly contribution varying from Rs. 10 to Rs. 25, according to the number of loans the member has availed from ASA-GV.
The members are provided with a Savings Passbook, which is updated regularly during the centre meetings. Impact assessment studies carried out by ASA-GV have shown that the members feel proud about the amount of savings accumulated in their account. The amount accumulated in their account is also refunded to the members, when they wish to leave the
microfinance programme.

Social Security Scheme
Following the comprehensive product portfolio of large MFIs all over the world, ASA-GV also offers micro-insurance products to its members, in collaboration with three private insurance companies.

The amount assured under ASA-GV’s micro-insurance product is Rs. 20,000 to the member’s nominee, on the death of the member due to any cause, including accidents such as snake bites. The premium for the product is reasonably low and the documentation required for processing of claims is minimal.

The product has been developed over a period of ten years and after experimental collaborations with several public sector as well as private insurance companies. Today, ASA-GV is one among largest micro insurance providers in the country that offer the life insurance product to their members.

ASA-GV is presently in the process of developing a comprehensive social security scheme that would offer life insurance benefit to the member and her husband, and also offer old age annuity benefits similar to pension, to members who are with the microfinance programme for a reasonably long period of time.

ASA-GV is also experimenting with developing a Comprehensive Social Security Scheme for the members, which would offer the poor women the benefit of Life Insurance (for self and spouse), Medical / Accident Insurance as well as old age income security (similar to pension, offered in the public sector). All these benefits would be provided on a payment of nominal premium collected from the members on a weekly basis.

      
                                                                                                                                                  

Natural Resource Management (NRM)
NRM programmes focus on addressing the drought, which is a major cause of poverty in Central TN, and drudgery of women is an initiative of ASA in collaboration with NABARD. Severe drought affects the repayment of loans to members. The traditional water management systems in the villages are renovated with the participation of community and handed over to the community for management. Presently the project covers over 3000 hectares of land.

Lobbying and Advocacy Campaign
The Federation has been active in lobbying and advocacy of microfinance as well as for addressing other social issues affecting the members. The meetings at various levels, the centres, clusters, co-ordination committee etc take up and discuss issues at their levels and bring those to the notice of authorities for action.

The latest such attempt was a grand advocacy campaign of all the 70,000 members organised at six venues for exempting microfinance sector from the Exorbitant Interest Rate Ordinance of TN government, which stipulate a cap of maximum interest rate that could be charged on loans at 12 percent. ASA-GV felt that this step, which would cause the MFIs operating in TN to be unviable and hence collapse, is mainly due to the lack of awareness of the decision makers about the Institutional Model of microfinance. ASA also felt that there is no forum for representing the operational level problems faced in the form of threats from the government officials, media, public and Financial Institutions.

To address these issues and to communicate strongly, a campaign of Federation of members was organised coinciding with the International Women’s Day-2004, which was a grand success in terms of its impact. The volunteerism among the members and the vibrancy evident during the event indicated the emergence of a stronger and dynamic federation with a potential to become a powerful civil society force. Such a strong federation will be capable of addressing not only MF issues but also larger social and political issues.

                     

Vidiyal Matriculation School (VMS)
VMS located in rural area, aims at providing high quality education to children of members at a low cost. This helps the members in reducing their expenses on educating their children by sending them to schools located in far of cities, which will be a drain on their resources. Presently there are over 500 students in the school.

                    

Child Labour School
There are five Child Labour Schools run by ASA under its microfinance plus programmes aimed at making up the gap in schooling of children of members who had dropped out from regular schools to work, due to extreme poverty. The programme in collaboration with the District Collectorate (The district administration) aims at bringing children back to mainstream education. The loss of income to the family due to the return of working children to education is compensated through a stipend. The school also provide notebooks, textbooks, health snacks etc free of cost with the aid of District Collectorate.

Vidiyal Information Service Provider – Kiosks
Provision of Information and Communication Technology services to the rural people is another major initiative by ASA aimed at addressing the Digital Divide. In its present design, people of rural area will be able to access the district administration and other government offices through the six Internet Kiosks functioning at rural centres in Trichy.

Business Development Services (BDS)
ASA, as a part of its microfinance plus services provide help to the members in creating forward and backward linkages for their businesses. There is a separate Business Development Service team assisting the members in marketing, production, market research and training.

ASA Community College (ACC)
The ASA Community College at Chinnakonar Patty, away from the mad rush of the city, with its lush green campus provide an ideal venue for conducting training programmes, both in-house and external for other NGOs. The College is the manifestation of desire to share the experience and learning of ASA and GV with others who are treading similar paths.

                                                                                                                                               

ASA-GV in the Tsunami Relief Activities
While several NGOs and voluntary organizations had participated in the relief activities immediately after the calamity, one major lacuna in the relief activities was that not all these agencies could immediately distribute the necessary material to the affected families who needed the material urgently, owing to lack of familiarity with the areas affected and a top-down approach to provision of relief materials (without assessing the needs properly). It is here that ASA-GV had an important role to play in the relief operations, as ASA-GV has been working with the grassroots community in the region for the past 20 years, and also has considerable experience in participatory needs-assessment processes to identify the needs of the poor.


                    


ASA-GV could also respond to the situation immediately, by advancing close to Rs. 25 lakhs from its operating income, suspending all operations for one week and deputing all the staff for activities relating to providing immediate relief in the affected areas. As a large voluntary organization working for social welfare and poverty alleviation in the region, ASA-GV thus played an important role in the relief efforts, by diverting resources for much-needed relief activities within a short period of time.

Moreover, while the initial focus is on immediate relief, ASA-GV plans to follow it up with rehabilitation efforts. The magnitude of the efforts required to rehabilitate the community and to rebuild the local village economy is huge, and the rehabilitation process will open up several opportunities for innovative microfinance and microfinance plus products and services. ASA-GV believes that the current relief efforts will pave the way for future opportunities.

Microfinance Programme in Tsunami Areas

ASA – GV started the micro credit Programme in two tsunami affected districts (Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts in Tamil Nadu) through two branches. It is proposed to work the rehabilitation activities with a cluster model approach. During the participatory needs assessment survey, 15 clusters were identified spread over Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts in Tamil Nadu.


                    

Under this component groups of women affected by tsunami will be formed and provided with small collateral free loans for working capital. The loan size will be of ranging from INR 3,000 to INR 10,000 depending upon the need of the affected people. The loans will be provided mainly for income generation and livelihood promotion activities. The groups will be trained in managing the financial affairs.

Individual loans will be provided to the members of the groups under group guarantee method. The decisions on loans will be on the basis of peer pressure and the decision will be taken by women members of the respective groups. The process will be facilitated by the field staff during the weekly centre (SHG) meetings.

The members will be from landless laborers, marginal farmers, poorest among the fishermen community, Dalits and other weaker sections of the society. The project will be entirely of women, who will be the primary participants of the project.