FIGHTING FOR LAND AND PROPERTY RIGHTS OF WOMEN
The ownership of land and assets is a necessary condition for women to achieve independence and self-reliance, but strong social pressure prevents them from holding property in their names. Women are thus left in a bind.
About You
Section 1: About You
Section 2: About Your Organization
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Organization Name
Mann Deshi Mahila Sah. Bank Ltd., Mhaswad
Organization Website
Organization Phone
+91 2373 270788, 270141
Organization Address
At Post- Mhaswad, Tal. Mann, Dist. Satara 415 509
Organization Country
India, MM
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Is your organization a
For‐profit
Your idea
Name your project.
FIGHTING FOR LAND AND PROPERTY RIGHTS OF WOMEN
Describe Your Idea
The ownership of land and assets is a necessary condition for women to achieve independence and self-reliance, but strong social pressure prevents them from holding property in their names. Women are thus left in a bind.
Country your work focuses on
India
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Mann Deshi always tries to find the solution which is celebrated by the society and the family. MD was the first bank in India to start the loan product which declares the subsidy in interest on the loan if the property is in the name of women. Many couples came forward for that loan because it was interest free loan. Not only that but many male came forward and gave the ownership of property to their wives. The reason was that family could get the loan with no interest. With this unique loan product Mann Deshi created a win-win situation. On one side family could get loan with subsidized interest. And on other side women could get the ownership of the property. Similarly on property papers for women Mann Deshi has tried in different ways.
Without the right to property, women are at risk of becoming economically alienated, losing assets, or facing eviction. Those who dare to file the claims on properties to which they’re entitled (either by investment or through labor) often become the targets of harassment.
Mann Deshi Mahila Bank started in 1997, one of our female borrower when she was taking loan she suggested to the bank that while taking loan I want my husband to be in the bank and consigned the loan papers. The reason for that she said she is taking the loan and will repay the loan to install water pipes in her field which is going to develop her farmland, which is own by my husband. These women she said that her husband should know that she is borrowing and repaying the loan to develop the farm whose ownership that is owned by her husband. She emphasize because of this she wants her husband to co-sign the loan papers to take the responsibility to repay the loan. This give a idea to bank that when women are taking loan, loan papers should have included a stamp paper in which husband declares that this loan is being used for the development of the land so his wife is co-parcner in the land. Since then Mann Deshi has made mandatory for all
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Tell us about the social impact of your innovation. Please include both numbers and stories as evidence of this impact
Our women clients have expressed that their pursuit of asset rights is not merely concerned with advancing material ownership or with gaining status. Rather, it’s a hope that legally secured assets will increase socially security, confidence, and respect.
Mann Deshi encourages home ownership among our clients.Mann Deshi has created an incentive for women to become homeowners by giving them a 1% rebate on interest paid on loans.
Succes story
“From Starvation to Education
Sakhubai Lokhande 60 years old. After marriage Sakhubai and her family live under the shelter because of financial issues. Sakhubai finally got fed up with her alcoholic husband’s lazy behavior, she shouted at her husband, her husband disappear to Bombay for a year. Finally, she went to Mumbai and found her husband .and quickly discovered that he had undergone a forced sterilization operation. Sakhubai recollects that they couldn’t have afforded another child anyway. Then she came back to mhaswad with her family. She took complete control of the family’s finances. She also launched a business based on her caste’s traditional work. Sakhubai’s caste is involved in a processing wood fibers from trees and weaving them into thread to make brooms and ropes. She hires people to make ropes and brooms for wholesale. She is getting good profit, each week she nets a total of 2000 rupees ($44), without counting her own labor as a cost.
The opening of Mann Deshi Mahila Bank in 1997 allowed Sakhubai to take larger loans at lower interest to finance her burgeoning business. In addition to financing the education of her entire extended family, Sakhubai has also built a house for her daughter and a house for her son, and the property papers are in her own name and her daughter’s. Always Sakhubai is unique, and has reputation in the market.
In 2004 Bank successfully lobbied with the Revenue Department to include women names in the property papers. Today nearly 600000 women have been able to
Problem
Mann Deshi bank provides financial services to women in rural area. This includes small savings, loan and pension. While providing loan to women the biggest challenge the women face is they do not have collateral. If Mann Deshi really want women entrepreneurs to start and expand their businesses it is very important to give them bigger loans. To provide this loans collateral is required. This is the reason today in India but even one percent of women get an access to banking services. Mann Deshi’s mission is to see that women can own the assets so that they can get an entry to financial sector and can start and expand their business. To achieve this Mann Deshi one side is providing financial services to women and other side helping women to develop and own the assets.
While providing loans to women Mann Deshi catered a unique a loan product under which when women gets loan their husband would declare on stamp paper that their wives are equal owners of their property. Mann Deshi Bank knew that a stamp paper alone isn’t enough to solve property rights problems, so we continued our struggle for women’s property rights.
Actions
It is Mann Deshi’s goal to pressure the government and the Reserve Bank of India to come up with policies and practices that are conducive to the inclusion of women. We will also take this commitment to advocacy to international organizations to ensure that the inclusion of women and reach of banking and financial services feature prominently in measures of development. In order to do this Mann Deshi aggressively seeks and develops partnerships with local organizations in order to offer appropriate new services to its clients, to scale up, and to ultimately reach more poor women.
It is not easy that husband would be ready to share the household property with wives. After the experience of lodhawade village Mann Deshi saw that in 2004 first time that village got 100% recovery on property tax. When we inquired with village council what was the reason for recovering the 100% of property tax, the village council officer said as women owed the property the letter of property tax is issued in women’s name and women do not like to do default so they paid the tax. Mann Deshi used this example when there was a challenge by bureaucracy in transferring the names of women in household
Results
Recently, Mann Deshi has started a new product of providing housing loan. Under this product Mann Deshi will provide a loan for housing and the household property should be in a joint ownership of husband and wife. On a pilot basis we are starting this loan product in one of the branch which is in semi-urban area. Under this in a first lot 500 household who at a present staying in a slums will get an apartment jointly in their wives name. This will not only provide house to slum doors but household property to women. And Phyzibility survey has already been completed. (This project is being implemented under HFA consultant, Ashoka, Pune)
A stamp-paper declaration protects a women’s husband from selling off her share of his property or claiming it for himself in case of divorce. However, the Bank seeks the additional measure of placing each woman’s name on her family assets’ property papers. This legal transfer will provide each woman the permanent assurance of having household and agricultural property in her own name, so she can always be secure in her ownership - not merely when there is a divorce or a resale.
We try to secure the ownership of women properties as
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$50 - 100
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
If so, how?
In 2001, we had the opportunity of participating in a competition for cleanest village.The rewards were initially non-financial, it was about recognition. At the district level, candidates for the ‘Cleanliest village’ competed for prize money and a new irrigation infrastructure. Some environmental measures were even stricter, such as the aggressive use of solar-power lamps and the banning of paper bags. But what allowed the villages to edge out its competition was that they incorporated social reforms, most significantly property-rights for women, into their cleanliness project.
Every village in the surrounding belongs to the woman householder. In most cases, the property papers list the woman as the only owner of the home; in most cases, the man and wife are listed as co-owners. Furthermore, the men transferred their property voluntarily to get the award. The Village Award is the motivation for men to transfer the household property in the name of women. The Maharashtra Government issued the policy.
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for more than 5 years
Does your organization have a board of directors or an advisory board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non monetary partnerships with businesses?
Does your organization have any non monetary partnerships with government?
Please tell us more about how partnerships could be critical to the success of your innovation.
Bank works with Government, corporate sector and social sector: Bank had attained the license of the Banking from the central Bank of India so that it becomes legitimate to tap the savings and reserves. Unlike other kinds of MFIs, Bank is a regulated bank that requires Reserve Bank approval every time to opens a new branch office. Because obtaining permission can be very difficult, Bank is petitioning for changes in Reserve Bank policies and making it more effective to access financial services in remote and rural areas. For the families who are earning below 1$ per day bank has develop the partnership with the government program and have been able to provide the grants for income generation activity and housing to the extreme poor families. Bank has developed the partnership with the corporate sector for the marketing product of the local producers. Partnership with the insurance companies has help bank to design the micro insurance products. Bank has partnership with the charitable hospitals, which provides reliable health services as in India it is difficult to get in the rural areas.
Bank has also a partnership with HSBC, they are partnering in our Business School Programs,
We would like to learn more about how your initiative is financially supported. Please explain your business plan/revenue model
Bank was started with savings, share holdings of local population. We collect tiny savings from the village women and credit is given to the needy. Operational cost is met by the interest paid by needy and low-income women who are taking loan for the small businesses. Bank also advocates local people to invest in saving and capital reserve, this helps to provide services to the needy and poor, other wise they will have to go to moneylender and pay exorbitant rate of interests. If women invest in the share can get the dividend and avail the facility of marketing their products. This motivates them to invest in capital reserves. As Bank has savings of 60 million, lending of 50 million rupees and the capital reserves of 10 million. This had been collected with the tiny transaction. This strategy has made institution self-supporting and profitable. Bank has never taken any short or long term funding. It started with the local resource and develops the institution in such a way that we can develop the sound capital reserve base; simultaneously meet operation cost through earning lucid interest. Bank regularly has to do rigorous exercise of keeping the administration cost low. Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget: 90%
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
In the early 1980s, the organization Sangharsh Vahini organized landless laborers of backward castes in a struggle for land under the slogan “land to the tiller.” Because many of the tillers in this movement were women, the struggle also fought for the land rights of women in general.
In this movement, tillers fought against the Hindu Math (a trust of the temple) for land that it was holding illegally. When the movement succeeded in forcing the Bihar government to distribute land among the tillers, women who were active in this movement demanded that they too have a right to land in their names. The government agreed, and for the first time in India’s history, women received title over land given by the state.
In 1985, the government of India decided that any land or pattas given to landless laborers must be given to both husbands and wives. The decision was supposed to take effect all over India, but this doesn’t always happen in reality.
This motivated Mann Deshi to start it’s own initiative regarding property rights.
Tell us about the social innovator—the person—behind this idea.
In 1982 in Walai, I, Chetna Sinha invited the highly esteemed agricultural activist Sharad Joshi for the transfer of property rights to women through the “Laxmi Mukthi” initiative to create social incentives. Under this initiative, he encouraged all families to revere mothers as “Lakshmi” and to regard a transfer of home ownership to her name as a responsibility that each family has to the female householder. Thus, the transfer of property rights became a means of showing one’s love for one’s mother or wife. As an added incentive, Sharad Joshi identified the participating village with the greatest number of property-transfers and named it a “Jyotiba Village.” The prize - a visit from Sharad Jyoshi – helped capitalize on the activist’s popularity among men. It was this popularity, which allowed him to offer nothing more than his visit as a sufficient motivator for a mass property transfer. Additionally, as he was highly regarded by nearly all of the farmer population of Walai, most of its population readily adopted Mr. Joshi’s opinions as their own. Not following Sharad Jyoshi’s requests concerning the treatment of women entailed a significant social cost: no farmer wanted to be singled out for holding an opinion contrary to Mr. Joshi, for this would make this farmer an unpopular minority. Thus, in this case, an entirely non-financial incentive structure was used to bring about a transfer of property.
In spite of this success, however, very few daughters were able to get a share of their fathers’ properties. As a result I wanted to start an institution to help women in rural areas out of poverty. The first step was the establishment of the Mann deshi Foundation (NGO) in 1996 followed by the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank in 1997.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Personal contact at Changemakers
If through another source, please provide the information.
Approximately 50 words left (400 characters).
Additional
Which (if any) of the following strategies apply to your organization or company (check as many as apply)
Formalizing and documenting property rights (i.e. titling, leasing or certification), Developing/applying technology for surveying, mapping and documenting property rights.
Please explain how your work furthers one or many of the above strategies (if you selected “other”, please explain your strategy)
With the introduction of the e-card system, we developed a technical device to control women’s financial situation and property papers directly in the field. This system makes sure that family members heave no acces to the information, so the womens privacy is secured.
 | 123 weeks ago Sushama Shendge said: Women must have property rights in her husbands or fathers property .. as after the death or divorce from her husband her in laws are ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 125 weeks ago Christine Guba said: Hello, I hope you support this voting for Mann Deshi! Mann Deshi is a really impressing organization. Whatever they do is focused ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 131 weeks ago vanita shinde submitted this idea. |
