Ever since Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his initiatives in micro finance, the sector has been attention that had hitherto been denied it. The Professor himself has been toasted around quite a bit and the Grameen Bank has now been invited to set up shop in Assam. But the success and spread of micro-finance in India has been patchy and mostly confined to the South Indian states where there has been a long history of thrift and credit societies and then subsequently of Self Help Groups.  Typically micro finance programs have had three common characteristics in India at least  –a) they have been women-centric, b) They have had an NGO non profit mindset, which has meant that business viability has been undermined) They have had a rural focus.
“Experience shows that microfinance can help the poor [...] Read full story