Ghulam Mohammad and his daughters: A case study for bankers

Ghulam Mohammad and his daughters: A case study for bankers

SRINAGAR: A sizable number of rural households are in debt in Jammu and Kashmir to meet their expenses of life and business. And ironically, nearly 4 percent of them are those who have taken loans from commercial banks for solemnisation of marriages and ceremonies, a social activity.
According to the National Statistical Survey (NSS), about 31 percent of the total 12,55,700 loan borrowers in J&K have borrowed money from various lending institutions, of which 6.7 percent was taken for revenue expenditure in the farm business, 3.4 percent for non-farm business, 3.9 percent for marriage and ceremonies, 2.9 percent for education, and 6.9 percent for other purposes. And the money taken for marriage amounts to 3.6 percent of the population.
Debt should ideally be taken for making businesses grow, and not for adding liabilities. In the case of Jammu and Kashmir, the money has been taken for purposes beyond business. Marriage is one of them. And the borrower has to pay an interest between 11.25 percent and 24 percent per annum. About 62 percent of these lending institutions are commercial banks in J&K. 0.4 percent of the total debt belonged to rural regional banks followed by 0.2 percent to Self Help Groups.
But why has so much loan been taken for marriages? A look at the life of the 65-year-old Ghulam Mohammad, who is one of the persons who has taken loan for marriage expenses, shows how societal norms have made people resort to a bank loan. A manual labourer for more than three decades, Mohammad, ever since he became a father to four children, three of them daughters, had been saving a part of his income for their future, especially for their marriage.
When his eldest daughter was 17, he decided to get her married. Just two months away from the day, the daughter developed a blood disease that cost him more than Rs 10k a month on medicines. The savings made for her marriage went into her treatment. The marriage was broken.
At 28, she is still suffering from the same illness, while the rest of her sisters are now married.
Mohammad still wakes up at the same time he used to when he got married. He goes to work and saves some money, still, but this time for a bank that had loaned him Rs 5 lakh for his daughter’s marriage. Four years into paying the amount, Mohammad is still not half way to it.
“I inherited one kanal of land, on which I have a house. Half of it has been sold for the treatment of my daughter. I was left with no money, so I approached a bank for a loan through a friend. I got the girls married, now I am repaying the loan,” he told Kashmir Reader.
The option of sending his daughters to college to make them capable of earning for themselves never occurred to him. “I did not know it. The easiest way was to get them married,” he said.
“Society would not have treated them well if I had not spent money on their marriage. They now have children, they are living their life well. I am only repaying a debt,” he said.

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