Current state of performance of selected MFIS in India

The poor and rural people need micro financial services both for credit and savings to undertake economic activity, smoothen consumption, mitigate vulnerability to income shocks, increase savings and to support self empowerment. Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) are the main players in the micro finance space. The MFIs could play a significant role in facilitating inclusion, as they are uniquely positioned in reaching out to the rural poor. Many of them operate in a limited geographical area, have a greater understanding of the issues specific to the rural poor, enjoy greater acceptability amongst the rural poor and have flexibility in operations providing a level of comfort to their clientele. Many MFIs around the world are still making efforts to reach more number of vulnerable poor and also to achieve sustainability. Today the issue of achieving sustainability is of concern for most of the MFIs in India also.

In India great crisis struck the Andhra Pradesh (state) Micro Finance Industry by the way of suicides by helpless borrowers, which in turn created doubt on the efficacy of most of the MFIs in the country. In these circumstances the author made an attempt to study the current state of performance of selected MFIs in India. In this scenario the author made efforts to know the performance of selected MFIs taking into consideration various performance indicators.