Kæmpelandets minister for landbrugsudvikling retter uhørt hård kritik mod mikrofinans – dvs små lån og opsparingsordninger for fattige – som har nydt stor bevågenhed hos mange vestlige bistandsgivere og er udbredt i Indien.
NEW DELHI, 28 November 2012: Micro-finance is in a “danger zone” and to think that poverty alleviation in India is possible through this “discredited model” is “crap”, Indias Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Wednesday according to Press Trust of India.
“Nothing can stop an idea whose time has gone. And micro-finance is in a danger zone. It is a discredited model. It has raised more questions that it has answered,” the Minister said in his valedictory address (afslutningstale) at the Micro finance summit here.
Ramesh cited the recent micro-finance crisis in (delstaten) Andhra Pradesh that triggered an economic meltdown (sammenbrud).
He said he was among those who believe that micro-finance has promised much more than it has actually delivered, created more problem than actually solved and continue to promise much more than that actually put on the ground.
“One should be somehow more modest in the expectation of micro-finance and micro-finance institutions. To think that we are going alleviate poverty is a tall tall claim. Poverty alleviation through micro-finance – it is crap,” he said.
The micro-finance sector of the country had faced a crisis when the Andhra Pradesh government came up with a law to regulate the sector in 2010.
The law banned micro-finance institutions from collecting weekly loan instalments (inddrive afdrag), by doing doorstep business.
Its direction to such institutions to secure government approval before giving a second loan to a borrower affected the sector after banks stopped giving money to them.
Ramesh, however, agreed with the idea of restructuring or rebuilding the model brick by brick.
