The Ladies’ Loan- boon or curse?
4 July 2008
The introduction of the BoB’s Ladies-Plus-Loan has made life financially easier for women in need of cash. The catch is- are the loans being put to proper use or is the money encouraging habits where they were none, like gambling.
The CEO of BoB, Kinga Tshering, said that the loan is for general purposes like starting a business, medical treatment, private scholarships etc. He said it was to help women with ideas, women who are enterprising but lacked the funds to do so. “Since it is virtually impossible for the bank to monitor each and every applicant, we’d like to appeal to the applicants to use their moral judgment and not misuse the loans that they are intended for. I think the guarantors could also play an important role in this,” he said.
So far, about 1,000 women have availed the Ladies-Plus-Loan. An employed woman with a regular income of more than Nu 10,000 a month can avail Nu 100,000.00, or an amount equivalent to ten month’s salary and Nu 50,000.00 for those who are not employed but come with a guarantor (who should be employed with a regular income/ monthly salary of not less than Nu 10,000.00). Repayment scheme is tied to the guarantor in such cases. The loan duration is for three years and the woman taking the loan should be above 20 years of age.
Currently, the scheme has been suspended because of the June end financial year closing for the government departments/ agencies that keep their accounts with the BoB. The CEO said that there are many backlog applications that need to be cleared. “The bank is also trying to launch the new schemes in the other dzongkhags and we will be sending a team from Thimphu to the various branches,” he said.
From about 1,000 women who availed the loans; about 51 percent were housewives, 26 percent were civil servants and 16 percent were either in business or were self-employed. The main objective for the BoB coming up with the scheme was mainly to empower women; who could play an important part in the country’s economic development. While the Ladies-Plus-Loan has been momentarily suspended, the CEO said, “we still have all our other schemes like the consumer loans, vehicle loans, the mortgage loans and the education loans that are still being offered.”
BoB will be announcing the date of the resumption of the Ladies Loan, with launch plans in place for other dzongkhags by August, 2008. So far, the total amount of loan released from BoB was about Nu 30 million. According to BoB, there are indicators that women are more responsible in terms of dealing with finances and better at repayments, though certain bank tellers requesting anonymity said a lot of the (ladies) loans being availed were used for gambling. The bank said this was beyond their control.
By Tandin Pem
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ladies-plus loan scheam is indeed a wonderful strategy taken up by BoB to enhance and promote ladies involvement in the society as an individual, but all are not alike i should say. It is wise if housewife are excluded, i say so not because they are not capable of repaying the loan but because of lot many other drawbacks that are attached with the nature of their work and the environment they live in. I believe in what some of the sources says, “RISE IN GAMBLING”, .especially among housewifes i believe. It is a matter of commen sense, if there is less work to be done naturally to kill time they resort to gambling to cut short time.
In deed it is a boon for the House Wives who has the capability/idea to utilize the loan amount in the better way but who laked in the finance. However for the catagory of the HW’S who are indulged in gambeling or in drinking habbits it could be a waste or the burden for the gurantor as well as to the institution. Having said that, there are so many catogaries of “Women” in our society. A women comming from a good back ground or having good moral values may come to the bank with the best of the intentions. So before comming to the point of “boon or a curse” it is important to identify the true intention of the bank not the ‘Loan Scheme, in this case it is to impower the Women in our Bhutanese Society. The Bank should in some extent educate the lonee about the product and about its utilization. Let this scheme have time to prove itself, only the time will tell its achievements.
why BoB is not allowed to take loan from the customers those who have the salary less than 10,000/- . Any one can repay the loan for Nu. 50,000/-.