Milaap Field Research – Sambahv
Each of them are built
Microfinance
Gwalior – 20 April, 2010
The Milaap team made a trip to Sambhav at
1 always try to engage the local masons and
Gwalior to understand the initiatives on water
and sanitation and other community
development programmes.
“How easy do you think is teaching sanitation
to people who have to travel miles to get a
bucket of water, just one bucket for the entire
family for two days?” – Dr. Singhs echoed the
toughness and harsh realities of the arid and
repeated draught hit Chambal region. Dr. S K
Singh, over the last 20 years, has led Sambhav
to address issues on tribal welfare, forestation,
education, healthcare and water and
sanitation in the region around Gwalior.
Sambhav was established in 1986 to address
social development in a multi faceted way
especially among the Sahariya tribes. The
current operations are managed by 10 offices
in 9 districts covering more than 600 villages
and above 110,000 families. “Working with
Sambhav has given me the recognition in this
community where women hardly come out of
their houses” remarks Savita bai from the
Jeradura slum in the outskirts of Gwalior.
Figure 1 Savita of Jeradura village. She is the
community leader and tries to educate people
to sanitation and also coordinates with
Sambhav to get financing for constructions
Efforts in Water & Sanitation
Sambhav has been active in water and
sanitation in one of the worst drought
affected areas in the country through a
combination of bore wells and rain water
1
http://www.sambhavindia.org/
Field Research Report on Sambhav Microfinance– written and compiled by Milaap Microfunds
harvesting initiatives.
and managed by the local community. “We
tried to develop linkages with all stake holders
in the community; teachers, community
leaders and even the local workers. We
that makes repair a lot easier”, says Deepak;
veteran in water and sanitation.
Figure 2 An electric water pump built under
support of Water Aid. Construction and
maintenance completely rests with the local
community.
The initiatives have mostly been funded by
Grants. Sambhav now plans to scale up
operations with more self-sustainable
programmes. Financial Inclusion Improves
Sanitation and Health (FINISH) is a consortium
of MFIs that have come together to develop
financing schemes focused on sanitation.
Sambhav has an ambitious target of financing
30,000 toilets in the urban slums. Illiteracy is a
critical roadblock in implementation of
pogrammes and Sambhav takes utmost care
to thoroughly train its staff who in turn need
to explain benefits to the locals. For example,
most initiatives depend heavily on pictorial
communication.
Innovation
Even with years of experience, Sambhav has
the eagerness to experiment and find out the
real need of the community. In a new loan
programme to finance toilets, three different
loan tenors (nine, twelve and eighteen
months) were allowed to understand the
demand from the community. The loan sizes
have also been kept variable to suit the needs
of the people to allow for options of building
toilets, bathrooms and also kitchen wash
basins if required. This much needed patience
and intent has been strikingly disappearing in default and conflicts have been noticed
many institutions recently taking the path around Gwalior making it difficult for
rapid expansion. Sambhav.

Figure 3 Toilet and water harvesting

programme completed under Water Aid funds.
Meticulous efforts are taken to educate the
people

Jeradura, a slum in the outskirts of Gwalior
and home to families of the backward class, is
the first place where Sambhav has launched
the massive toilet financing programme under
FINNISH. The constructions of functional
toilets, under severe space constraints of an
urban slum, exhibit ample innovation in
themselves. Basic issues, like avoiding
contamination of water sources, have been
meticulously considered in all the
constructions. Two decades of expertise of
Sambhav, has worked wonders for this slum.
The Road Ahead
The mainstream microfinance programe was
initiated three years back. Here also, Sambhav
is trying to understand the need of the
community before rapid commercialization.
“Developing a loan product, tuned to the
needs of the people, is a teething process. We
do not want to jeopardize years of connect
with the community just out of commercial
interests. In the long run, we are confident
this connect will hold us in good stead against
steep competition”, says Priyanka Singh who
leads the microfinance programme at
Sambhav who has previously led a much
successful programme on AIDS awareness.
Entry of larger microfinance players has seen
competition shooting up. Unlike Sambhav, not
everyone has the patience as it conflicts with
high commercial interests. Rapid of influx of
easy credit, without proper education on fund
utlisation, is a major concern. Instances of
Figure 4 A functional toilet carved out of the
small available space in Jeradura slum area.
The small space under the staircase is
judiciously utilized.
The recently started MFI programme is
creating Joint Liability Groups (JLG) to scale up
operations. The development team works in
tandem to train those JLGs and extensively
train them. It serves the dual purpose of
consolidating member base and developing
community projects. “We have been here for
20 years and plan to be for the next two as
well. We have to develop strong community
linkages. We can not operate recklessly in
dumping money and closing shutters on when
the people fail to repay” remarks a confident
Priyanka – reflecting a rare balance between
developing a business and the addressing the
fundamental concerns of the community.
The challenge of Sambhav, is typical of many
existing social organizations trying to balance
community development with
commercialisation. After years of sound work
with the community, they now face the
increasing threat of erosion of community
base, under the pressure of fast escalating
MFIs fuelled by large investments. The issue is
one of the most debated ones in Indian
microfinance. It is beyond doubt that the
balance is essential to the sustainability social
sector. Sambhav is certainly a candidate to
look out for on how the more difficult work of
actual implementation is worked out.

Field Research Report on Sambhav Microfinance– written and compiled by Milaap Microfunds
Reference
Water & sanitation initiative of Sambhav
under grant from Water Aid
“DAMYANTI WATER AND SANITATION
ROGRAM DISTRICT SHIVPURI MP” Water Aid
India Project Completion Report, June 2008
http://www.sambhavindia.org/completed/PC
R%20Shivpuri-Final.pdf
Information on FINISH
http://www.finishsociety.com/
Annual Reports and other official documents
http://www.sambhavindia.org/pages/archive.
html
Micro enterprise and new economic activities
like poultry. Streamlines traditional
occupations - basket making, collecting
medicinal herbs and honey; attempts at better
marketing avenues; explores linkages with
institutional lending sources. Promotes and
markets handicrafts and items such as honey,
herbal medicine, woven baskets, embroidered
cotton garments, wooden toys and metal
work items made by women entrepreneurs.
14 women's groups meet regularly and
manage savings and credit activities that are
linked under NABARD's self-help groups'
scheme.

Other information on Sambhav

http://sambhavcso.blogspot.com/2010_04_0
1_archive.html

Appendix

Other social initiatives at Sambhav

Community health - reaches basic and

primary health care to people; prevents and
manages common ailments; uses available
government health services; trains traditional
birth attendants and village-level health
workers; supports rational drug therapy and
consumer rights education; operates three
health centres with basic facilities for quality
health services; helps communities to combat
TB, malaria, malnutrition and other
communicable, but preventable diseases. Was
selected as Mother NGO to support smaller
NGOs to take up RCH programme in MP's six
districts. Has created an AIDS counselling
centre/ cell; avails service of counsellors
trained by Tata Institute of Social Science,
Mumbai. Advocacy and community
mobilisation -forms and empowers village
groups; organises legal aid support; awareness
raising camps; trains village workers. Provides
inputs on issues - land disputes and women's
rights; fights against atrocities and
exploitation.

Child education - 25 centres provide primary-

level education to tribal children, instrumental
in a better performance in formal education
tests; raises literacy level, health education,
parents' participation and general awareness
levels.

Field Research Report on Sambhav Microfinance– written and compiled by Milaap Microfunds