*Research Scholar, Department of Commerce, Manipur University, India
**Associate Professor, Department of Commerce, Manipur University, India
***Faculty, Department of Computer Science, Manipur University, India
Online published on 20 February, 2014.
Traditionally, the people of Manipur have a very good culture of savings. There is system of savings in holes of bamboo pillars of houses and in piggy banks. Women of the state have a habit of putting back one handful of rice out of rice measured for everyday cooking. People of the state have a good culture of community support and cooperation. In every event of any member/family of the community, there is a system of community assistance and support through collective contribution among the community households.
A very important method of community savings and credit system in order to help and support members in a locality/community is to form/organise ‘Marup’, which means ‘Friendship’. It appears that the saving behaviour in the informal sector is born out of two factors -A sense of compulsion and commitment and willingness to be free from the “additional financial burden”.
Marup system plays a very important role in solving the financial needs of the people in various events and it is a very good means to mobilise savings among the people of the state. Its popularity is so large that most of the households in the societies of the state take part in marups. It can be said that a large amount of money is being circulated in the informal sector even much more than that of banks and other organised financial institutions.
Marup, Informal Financial Sector, Informal Group Savings, Community
