New Delhi/Patna 29 Sep
Sahulat Microfinance Society is seriously working on using microfinance as a tool to alleviate poverty. Launched earlier this year by the Delhi-based Human Welfare Foundation, the Society is building a network of microfinance system throughout the country. Part of campaign to spread awareness about microfinance and to collect ideas on how it can be used as poverty alleviation tool, the Society held a daylong program at Bihar Chamber of Commerce here in Patna on September 27. K.A. Siddique Hasan, President, Sahulat Microfinance Society, introduced the Society to the audience. He said Sahulat is a national organization which is an important wing of Human Welfare Foundation, which is working on the program of Microfinance in all the corners of India. “This Programme’s chief motive is to link the tool of microfinance with the serious poverty alleviation efforts in India, and to consolidate and document the ideas related to spreading Microfinance in India,” said Hasan.
Noted scholars and professionals from financial, educational, social and banking fields were present at the meet. People suggested on how to make microfinance banking system more effective that will help us to bridge the gap between the deprived section of the society and mainstream.Arshad Ajmal, Vice President, Sahulat Microfinance Society, greeted the audience and expressed thanks for their kind presence at the meet.
About Me
- Vision 2016
- Is an ambitious plan to bring about transformation on the social landscape of the country. It focuses on education, health, economic upliftment, empowerment of women and disaster management. The plan envisages the establishment of multifarious institutions across the country, with a strong human resource of committed volunteers and recognized community leaders.......
New Delhi 25 September: The heavy and incessant rain in capital and rise in the water level of Yamuna river has led flood in Delhi which has affected many places in Delhi mainly the people living near Yamuna river. The people of Dhobi Ghat has been badly affected by flood and they are living in temporary tents. When the regional co-ordinator of SBF, Aquil Ahmed (Society for Fright Future) which is working under vision 2016 program a national based NGO visited the flood affected areas the people said that they need plastic sheets for covering their tent from water at earliest.
Thereafter, today he bought 41 plastic sheets and distributed with the help of Jawed Ahmed a student of Jamia Millia Islamia to the 41 families who were the flood affected victims.
Jawed Ahmed said to the flood affected victims that if they face any problem and require anything then please inform us. We will try to solve the problem with the organsiation like SBF which is working for disaster and rehabilitation work and also with government.
Aquil Ahmed, Jawed and Zahoor discussed with the flood affected victims and suggested that there are government hospitals were they can get best medical facilities at minimum charges.
New Delhi 20th September: Professor Siddique Hassan recently visited Muscat and said in an interview to Oman times that he has started the vision 2016 program for the upliftment of poor people, Dalit and especially Muslims in educationally, socially and economically.
He also said in an exclusive interview to Times of Oman, that under the vision 2016 program its main emphasis and area of focus and work would be on education, health, micro finance, employment generation, legal help and establishment of multiple institutions across India with a strong support of volunteers and leaders.
He decided to start this mission soon after visiting the northern areas like Bihar, U.P., Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam and West Bengal.
He saw the pathetic condition of poor people and came to know that these people are even not getting basic amenities.
Siddique Hassan said that the poor people can be uplifted only after getting better education.
Therefore he has started many primary schools in U.P. state and many schools are in proposal for opening in near future.
He has taken the support of Jamaat-e-Islami and Human Welfare Trust for starting the vision 2016 program.
50 NGO is running on 120 projects in different parts of India under Human Welfare Trust,” he emphasized.
The famous leaders of the community are in the board of trustee of Human Welfare Trust,” he explained.
The trust is also starting its efforts to start the microfinance and Islamic microfinance in different parts of India soon so that the financial trouble of poor people can be somehow solved.
AFTAB H. KOLA
http://www.timesofoman.com/searchdetail.asp?cat=&detail=39276&rand=CKl4hnblcWG4l4O1JSH2MJvQv4
MUSCAT18 September 2010 08:40:25 Oman Time: Meet Prof. K. A. Siddique Hassan from India who has made Vision 2016 his mission. On a personal visit to Oman recently, Prof. Siddique sought to bring about an awareness among Indian expats that transforming the social development landscape of their country is the need of the hour. Talking exclusively to Times of Oman, Siddique said, “Taking up education, health, micro finance, employment generation and legal help as the focus areas, the Vision 2016 envisages the establishment of multiple institutions across India, with a strong backup of committed volunteers and leaders. The projects are run by several NGOs under the supervision of umbrella body, the Human Welfare Trust, New Delhi.” What made him take up this ambitious programme? Siddique avers, “Vision 2016 is a result of my own heart-breaking experience at the time of Bhagalpur communal clashes. I visited the area and saw the pathetic conditions of the affected people, both Hindus and Muslims, there. “Subsequently, I got an opportunity to see the pitiable conditions of poverty-stricken people, mainly Muslims and Dalits living without even basic amenities in northern India. Then I decided that I should do something concrete for the downtrodden people and Vision 2016 was born with the backing of Jamate Islami Hind, an organisation which has received praise from all sections of people for their social work. He says, “Our mission is to serve the poor and deprived sections of the society by providing them basic amenities like education, healthcare, food and shelter that equip individuals to become an equal partner in the progress of the nation and by helping the victims of natural calamities to move towards a world free from hunger, ignorance, deprivation and exploitation.” Education Siddique adds, “Our main focus is education, educational awareness with thrust on primary education. We are concentrating in north India, especially UP, Bihar, Assam and West Bengal where the majority of most backward people live. “The project will target 10 million beneficiaries in a span of 10 years and the project will move forward after 2016 to its next phase.” “The Human Welfare Trust has created a vision for itself, set a goal and fixed targets for 2016. It will pool funds, provide the human resources, translate the programme from paper to the ground, monitor the progress and evaluate the projects with course correction at every level. Human Welfare Trust is an umbrella body with several distinguished and experienced community leaders on its board of trustees. It has 50 NGOs as its affiliates spread over 20 states, implementing more than 125 projects. The number of beneficiaries so far are well above a million,” Siddique added. Another area of focus of the Human Welfare Trust is microfinance. Siddique informs, “Islamic microfinance represents the meeting point of two rapidly growing industries: Microfinance and Islamic finance. “It has the potential to not only respond to meet demand but also to combine the Islamic social principle of caring for the less fortunate with microfinance’s power to provide financial access to the poor. Unlocking this potential could be the key to providing financial access to millions of poor. We are making a good headway in this direction.”
Prof. K. A. Siddique Hassan, trustee of HWT said that the medical mobile van facility to poor people for providing treatment by doctors is a new initiative and we hope that it will provide maximum health benefit to poor and marginalized section of the society living in remote and rural areas and it will cost minimum in comparison to open many hospitals in different parts of the states.
“To open many hospitals in many places of the states is a very costly and time taken task. So, in a minimum cost we can provide medical facility and medical mobile van is the best option,” he emphasized.
He also said about the spread of diseases in incessant rain in the capital that somehow government is responsible but we are also paying negligence to eradicate the disease.
He said that if we people make our locality and city clean and raise fund to remove garbage then there is no need to shout and blame on others.
The government alone cannot do everything, if we will raise funds and remove garbage and take city clean drive then obviously diseases will not prevail or spread and our money on treatment will be saved,” he requested to people.
Qazi iSheikh Usaidul Haque Qadri said that we often see in newspaper or hear in radio that due to delay to bring the patient to hospital the situation of patient become more critical.
“The mobile medical service will directly give treatment to the patient wherever he/she is residing and this idea will be appreciable and welcome from the people residing in rural areas of India, he further explained.
Human Welfare Trust has taken this new initiative to eradicate diseases from village of U.P. at first then after the success of this scheme we will further increase the numbers of medical mobile van facility in other places of the states.
There are government hospitals in rural areas but at long distance, very few in numbers and due to lack of conveyance and worse condition of road the people suffer a lot.
The country is progressing in every sector but not in health and education sector. The illiteracy rate and wide spread of diseases which always come to appear in newspaper is speaking a lot and aloud about negligence of both government and people on these two areas.
The medical mobile van will roam in entire village areas and provide medical facility to the patient directly. In this medical mobile van a doctor will also be available and he will prescribe the medicines and give treatment to the patients at the same place. In medical mobile van the time of expert and specialist doctor will also be fixed on weekly basis for providing medical services to special treatment of patients directly and at the place where the patient is residing.
With microfinance institutions under attack for allegedly focusing on profit at the cost of poor borrowers, an alternative way of lending—based on Islamic principles—is gaining ground
Maitreyee Handique
New Delhi23 September: Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have turned the business of lending tiny amounts to the unbanked poor—from vegetable vendors and tailors in the cities to fishermen and farmers in the villages—into a thriving industry with assets estimated at almost Rs 12,000 crore in fiscal 2009.
But MFIs have been targeted by critics for alleged profiteering at the expense of the poor by charging interest rates as high as 24-36%.
K.A. Siddique Hassan believes he has an alternative method that will keep vulnerable borrowers out of the debt trap—of lending at no interest at all.
Ray of hope: Alemmunisa (foreground) is one of the women entrepreneurs who launched a vegetable business with help from Jan Sewa. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint
From the campus of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, an organization that promotes Islamic teachings in south Delhi and where he is vice-president, Hassan has been striving to craft a new form of microfinance inspired by teachings of the Quran.
Pinning its model on the tenets of the Shariah, or Islamic law, the organization started a not-for-profit organization called Sahulat Microfinance Society earlier this year, with the express purpose of discouraging riba (Arabic for “interest”) in financial dealings. Income is in the form of profit-sharing.
To provide professional inputs, Hassan has enlisted a dozen experts, including Hyderabad-based microfinance institution Basix Group and a former World Bank official. The plan is to set up at least 500 new microfinance societies under the Sahulat (Urdu for convenience) umbrella in 10 years.
Hassan is not the only one to have had the idea. In Mumbai, the All India Council of Muslim Economic Upliftment (AICMEU), which supports community development programmes, wants to open microlending centres across India, strictly enforcing the Islamic prohibition on charging interest.
In March, AICMEU’s Jan Sewa Cooperative Credit Society obtained approval to offer business credit to women in 12 states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal. Al-Khair Cooperative Credit Society, which works in Bihar, plans to expand into Delhi, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
Islamic lending, which began in Egypt, has already found resonance in many parts of the world where Muslims form a majority of the population.
Islamic tenets
In India, where Muslims account for 13.4% of the population, the situation is different. Islamic banks, which have ridden the petro-dollar to grow to $950 billion (Rs 43.23 trillion) in global assets, aren’t allowed to function under the law, although a 2008 government committee headed by economist Raghuram Rajan favoured promoting interest-free financial instruments.
Islamic microfinance traces its rise to a friendlier cooperative law that gives legal sanctity to many Islamic financial products even as scepticism grows about the lending practices of MFIs.
An amendment to the 2002 Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act allows groups of individuals to participate in both raising deposits and sharing surplus income, which is integral to doing business according to the faith.
Unlike modern banking, which has an interest-led obligation, Islamic finance is mostly about sharing both rewards and losses under a pre-arranged contract.
Under Shariah, banks get involved in the selling and buying of goods. That is incompatible with Indian banking law, and some experts say interest-free banking is not feasible as banks have to pay interest on savings and buy government bonds at fixed interest rates.
Hassan says most Islamic products are safe because the lenders themselves are often involved in equity participation, reducing the chance of crises such as the sub-prime shock in the US that felled many institutions and led up to the global financial crisis.
“Our intention,” he says, “is to open these concepts as a tool of empowerment to all without discrimination.”
There are, of course, profits to be made by banking for the poor as MFIs have demonstrated. But a recent Economic & Political Weekly article by Tara S. Nair, associate professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, pointed to disturbing trends in the microlending industry, including abnormal profits and companies doubling income through cross-holding of shares.
The microfinance debate
The debate rose in pitch as SKS Microfinance Ltd raised $358 million in an initial public offering last month that was subscribed 13.6 times.
“Most of the profit-seeking activity has been extended to the other end of the logical extreme,” Nair said in a phone interview. “While there is an urgent need to expand financial services, one doubts whether it’s addressing their (the poor’s) needs.”
Criticism of microlending practices and the high interest rates they charge on loans to the poor has been accompanied by calls for stricter regulation of MFIs. There have been concerns that MFIs could find themselves laden with defaults because of the risk that multiple institutions may have lent to the same borrowers.
Helping hand: K.A. Siddique Hassan of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind plans to take interest-free banking to the poor under Sahulat Microfinance Society. Ankit Agrawal / Mint
“We are trying to correct ourselves,” says Anoop Kaul, head of financial inclusion at Basix and a member of Sahulat.
Some in the industry will now share data on credit histories to check that customers do not borrow from multiple sources, which reduces their ability to repay.
But Nair says many things are still taken for “granted by the industry”. The norms of profit-sharing and shareholding structure, for instance, are never mentioned in their reports. “You cannot forget about the little guy, and only think about investments, profits and top line,” she says.
Islamic cooperatives offering microfinance won’t be in that situation. Jan Sewa, promoted by AICMEU, strives for a return of 4-6%. Its subsidy-linked model will train women in entrepreneurship with government bank-linked assistance, while loans will be made through charity donations and zakat, the mandatory 2.5% contribution of annualized income prescribed by Islam.
But are these “service fees” interest rates by another name?
“Generally the math works (in) such (a way) that all charges paid almost equal interest rates. However, the structure is Islamic-compliant as a (service) charge,” says Abizer Diwanji, head of financial services at audit and consulting firm KPMG.
Rahmatullah Abdul Ahad, managing trustee of AICMEU, says: “In modern banking, interest is the price of money, including profit, while in the Islamic system, it’s the cost of money in mobilizing and lending.” Sometimes simple credit—not working capital—is enough to start a small business, Ahad adds.
Financial inclusion
While it is still early days, people are already benefiting from Jan Sewa.
Last month, Alemmunisa, a 40-year-old mother of three, joined two friends and started selling vegetables on the sidewalk of Kanjur Marg in Mumbai. Jan Sewa had put them in touch with a Pune wholesaler.
At the end of the first fortnight, they earned Rs 2,500, after paying Rs 10,000 to the supplier. “We are happy to get the benefits,” she says, “and we want to sell more vegetables.”
A lack of financial literacy and half-hearted government policy are among the biggest hurdles for financial inclusion in India, according to Diwanji. “By promoting Islamic banking, the government can extract capital and bring people into the banking network,” he says.
Many of the new entrants into Islamic microfinance think they will fill this gap, and they would be happy to repeat the success of Al-Khair, which has operated around Patna since 2002. Collecting deposits of less than Rs 200 a day, Al-Khair today has 7,000-odd customers and a deposit balance of Rs 4.1 crore.
While it charges a service fee of 3.5% for regular loans, Al-Khair also offers short-term business loans, with a built-in profit-share clause, as one of its many products; it charges even lower fees on this product.
“It’s all about truthful relations, because you can’t always demand balance sheets from someone who takes a small amount,” says Arshad Ajmal, Al-Khair’s founder.
Al-Khair, a non-profit society, spends 30% of its earnings in social enterprise schemes; its main source of profit is selling merchandise products, such as fans, emergency lights and scooters, under a murabaha, or “cost-plus-finance” scheme.
This allows Al-Khair to buy goods from wholesalers, then sell them with an added financing charge of 8-15%. This still works out cheaper than retail prices.
Shiv Kumar Singh, who runs a clothing store in Patna’s Gardanibagh area, has borrowed from Al-Khair 14 times in the last four years. He also represents one of the invisible people that India’s formal banking network bypasses every day.
When Singh, 35, went to the local Canara Bank office for a loan, officials made him open an account. A year later, they informed him that his request couldn’t be processed because he lives in a rented accommodation without any permanent address.
Singh says he’s constantly in need of funds to expand his shop. So he asked his wife Sushma to open an SKS Microfinance account last year while he repaid his loan to Al-Khair.
He says he pays Rs 250, or 2.5%, on the Rs 10,000 he borrowed, while his wife is required to pay Rs 4,000, or 20%, on the Rs 20,000 she borrowed, apart from the rs 80 paid as insurance every month.
The repayment schedule at Al-Khair is six months, while at SKS collection begins within a week, he says.
His expenses grow every day, Singh says. “We need money to buy goods, but (we’ve always found it) difficult to get,” he adds.
E.mail: maitreyee.h@livemint.com
New Delhi 17th September: Human Welfare Foundation New Delhi and P.M. Foundation, Kerala will jointly organize programme to felicitate 2000 Muslims meritorious students from four states of India.
The awards distribution ceremony will held on in many states of India in Bihar, U.P., Assam, West Bengal on 26 September, 3 October, 10 October, 29 November respectively. The students will be awarded with mementos and cash prizes in award distribution ceremony. Apart from the minority meritorious students the Foundation will also give awards to best minority schools whose performance and records have been excellent in previous years.
This should be noted that after award distribution ceremony the foundation held talent search test of 100 marks to evaluate the performance and ability of the students and thereafter foundation give career counseling guidance to students to choose best courses according to their ability and interest and also offer scholarship to poor students.
Last year, HWF and P.M. Foundation organised the programme on 8th November in U.P. and awarded 735 muslims meritorious students belonging from 46 districts of U.P. states only in which many important personalities, social activist, educationist and leaders made their valuable participation and they encouraged and appealed the students to do better in their examinations and be part of nation building.
The general Secretary of HWF, Prof. K. A. Siddique Hassan said that we are organizing awards distribution ceremony in more states to promote muslims students so that they can do better in their near future.
He said that the trends of only medical and engineering is old now there are many courses and the students can avail the opportunities and select the course according to their interest and do better in their future rather than selecting those courses in which they have no interest and in this way they will only waste their valuable time.
He emphasized that right after the report of sachar committee we have started an NGO with a name of vision 2016 to uplift muslims educationally, socially and economically.
He further said that if the students will do better in their career and gain good result then they will certainly get good job and automatically the economical condition of muslim family will improve.
He said that this is the one such step of vision 2016 program to encourage students so that the students who have appeared in board examinations in 2010 will do more excellent in their further examination and the other students who will appear in coming board examination will also be encouraged.
The foundation is running many schools, colleges, giving coaching classes, offering scholarship to help poor students.
New Delhi 13th September: Jalaluddin Umri, President of Jamaat-e-Islami, Hind appealed the people to directly study the Islam. He said this in a programme which held on the occasion of Eid on the name of Eid get-together (Eid Milan) in the headquarter of JIH on 12th September at evening. He said that the fasting give us the teaching to control on our desire.
Through fasting we develop fear of Allah, he said. We also develop the patience and tolerance through fasting in Ramazan but we should be patient and tolerant in our entire life as we practiced in Ramazan, he explained. Allah made one month of Ramazan compulsory for Muslims so that they may develop taqwa in whole life, he explained.
He withdrew attention of the whole participants in the celebration of Eid get-together and he mainly requested Hindu brethren to directly study Islam rather than searching the conduct and behavior of Muslims and comparing with Islam. He also requested them to ponder over the Ibadah (worship) of Muslims.
The programme was started with recitation of holy Quran by Arshad Nadeem and translated by Zainuddin in Urdu and Hindi respectively. Zonal president of Delhi and Haryana, Dr. Muhammad Rafat explained the lecture of Jalaluddin Umri in English. The programme was chaired by Secretary of Dawat section of JIH, Muhammad Iqbal. Many important personalities of the city like secretary of Iran cultural house, Dr. Kareem Najfi, former president of All India Muslim Majlis-e- Mushawarat, Syed Shahabuddin, Maulana Ataur Rahman Qasmi, chairman of Jain TV, Dr. J. K. Jain, famous documentary maker, Suberdeeb Chakravarty, Gopal Menon, Director of “Hey-Ram”, Co-ordinator of Jamia Minority Status Committee, M. Ilyas Malik, Secretary of Fiqh Academy, Ameen Usmani, President of Ambedkar Samaj Party, Tej Singh, Mohd. Athar of NDTV, Mahmood Ahmed of CNEB (News),and Roshan Ali of CNN-IBN among other renowned journalists of both electronic and print media valuable participation in Eid get-together programme.
New Delhi 8th September: HWT plans to set up scores of hospitals excluding Al-Shifa Multi-speciality hospital, in the campus of Dawat Nagar, Okhla, under vision 2016 program, a top official said on 2nd September.
He said that the set up of Al-Shifa Hospital, New Delhi is an initiative of Human Welfare Trust under vision 2016 program. The nation based NGO Human Welfare Foundation is also helping for the set up of Al-Shifa Hospital by financially, providing specialist doctors panel, architecture, pathologists, pharmacists and engineers to complete the civic work of Hospital and give it to best look and infrastructure. These efforts were made to provide maximum benefit and comfort for the patient. The hospital will be of 300 bed and covers the treatment from minor to critical diseases.
The medical fees will be minimum in comparison to other private hospitals in Delhi, according to a top official of the hospital.
He also said that Jamia Nagar is a densely muslim populated locality and the community will get Al-Shifa Multi-Speciality hospital at the end of this year.
“Our main focus will be to spread health in muslim community so that they can get education and further work in a better way and they could become a part of nation building,” He explained.
He also said that from minor illness to critical all the health illness will be cured.
The high technology equipment is already started to come in the hospital and almost many parts of hospital has been completed. Some furnishing work is to be done which will be completed in some months, he said while showing the hospital and its premises.
After the completion of Al-Shifa Hospital in Jamia Nagar, the HWT will soon set up scores of hospital in many parts of India, he added.
He said that we are trying our best to complete the construction work of hospital soon but the recent heavy rains in the capital have badly affected the progress in the civil work of hospital as it did other construction in the capital.
The hospital is going to be built in the campus of Dawat Nagar a densely populated area of Muslims. The huge muslim population is due to Jamia Millia Islamia, a central University.
The purpose of establishing the hospital is to provide health care facility to poor people especially muslim community at lowest fees structure which they can afford.
He also said that the biodata of doctors are coming to us and we will soon finalise and appoint them after completion of hospital, said Brig. Zafar.
Al-Shifa Multi-speciality hospital is of Human Welfare Trust under vision 2016 program.
The Al-Shifa hospital will provide all health care facilities like obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and neonatology, internal medicine (general medicine) and general surgery. Besides, the hospital will provide specialist consultation in cardiology, orthopedics, gastroenterology, endocrinology, neurology, nephrology, pulmonology, ENT, Dermatology, dental and ophthalmology.
Besides these, hospital will provide other medical services and facility like: Casualty and emergency (24X7), labour delivery suite, neonatal ICU, operation theatres, ICU and surgical ICU, clinical lab, imaging services (CT, X-ray, Ultrasound), diagnostics (ECG, TMT, EEG, EMG, Spirometry etc), consultation room (separate for women), pharmacy, physiotherapy, comfortable waiting areas, accommodation (Deluxe, Single and General).
The hospital will be self-dependent, and so to bear medical expenses of poor patients, there will be a separate organization. That organization will pay the medical cost of such patients to the hospital, said Zafar Ali.
“High-tech medical care has become very expensive, mainly due to the exorbitant prices of imported equipment. It is therefore not possible to offer free treatment for procedures like heart surgery, angioplasty, neurosurgery, laser treatment, and so on. Thus, user charges are necessary, but can be kept reasonable if the services are efficiently utilized and equipments are carefully maintained. Keeping in view of public benefit, the Human Welfare Trust has kept the provision in its plan to provide health care facilities at an affordable cost,” says a brochure of the coming hospital.
“As per the plan, the first phase of Al-Shifa Multi-Specialty Hospital comprising outpatient department, inpatient department accommodating 40 beds and a diagnostic centre which will be completed soon, “said Zafar Ali, The process of purchasing of medical equipments, machineries has already started. The Advisory Board and Managing Committee of Hospital have already been constituted. The process of recruitment of doctors and other medical, non-medical staff has also started, he added.