Mrs. Sunita Chauhan

Mrs. Sunita Chauhan from Timarni village in Harda is a member of Prachi SHG. She is now a 2nd cycle client of Annapurna. Three years back Sunita lost her husband. She has three sons, the elder one is currently doing ITI and helping her in her business, the middle one works in hotel and the youngest one is studying in 9th grade and stays at hostel in Harda. Her husband had a catering business and a vehicle for transportation of school kids from the village to the schools. After his death, the catering business was closed and Mrs. Sunita solely had the responsibility of her household including children’s education, managing the ten-year-old small grocery shop at her home and continuing with the transport business. With the first loan from Annapurna of amount 25000 Rs, she bought a Maruti Omni to pick up and drop the school kids. When she had started this business with her husband, only eight children were using the transport facility. And then, they got a contract from village’s primary school, Bachpan School, worth 20000 Rs. She bought the Omni as the number of children had increased to 28. In 2017, she got a loan of Rs. 40000 from Annapurna. She sold the first two vehicles and bought a 42-seater bus, as the number of students using the vehicle further increased to 45. Now, children from three nearby villages, Sodalpur, Bedagaon and Alampur, use the bus to reach to two schools, Bachpan School and High School at Timarni. Besides Annapurna’s loan, Sunita also took a loan from Bank for buying this vehicle. Currently, vehicle maintenance costs her almost one lakh rupees a year. She charges an average 800 Rs. per kid in a month for the transportation facility. She has employed one driver, whom she pays a salary of 8000 Rs. per month and a helper whom she gives 3000 Rs. per month. Mrs. Chauhan always had a flair for starting something on her own. In 2007, she got training on tailoring and she started teaching the girls from the nearby villages, this used to pay her around 5000 Rs. per month. But this was interrupted after her husband’s demise as he used to take her to the villages so that she can deliver the trainings. Recently, she has started this again at her home. She gives tailoring lessons to two girls from the village. Now, she has two stitching machine and one pico machine at her home. By doing stitching works of the women in the villages she earns around 3000 Rs in a month. She uses the savings from these two businesses to improve the stock in her shop as well. In her shop, she sells goods worth Rs. 1000 every day on an average. Mrs. Sunita is an example how a woman from rural background, if wilful and supported financially, can work against the challenges and ensure financial sustainability of her family. Now, she wants to buy one interlocking machine for her tailoring business and make the shop bigger. Because of the exposures, she is very aware of the financial options. Initially she had a bank account in UCO bank, now along with this she has opened accounts in Canara Bank and State Bank of India, and she visits the banks to save money from her business. She thinks the best features of Annapurna are the decreasing interest rate and monthly instalment. She is very thankful to the organization because of the financial support during her need and friendly behaviour of the Annapurna employees. She wants to continue with the organization and take a personal loan in future to turn her vision into action.