An Inspiring Tale of How Farmers in Chettithangal Village Improved Their Livelihood & Income

From the village of Chettithangal in the Sirumur Panchayat area of the Arani Circle in the Tiruvannamalai District of Tamil Nadu, comes Lakshmipathi, a farmer by occupation. With the help of the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), Lakshmipathi and three other farmers - Meghanadhan, Munivel, and Ramadas established the Vivekananda Joint Responsibility Committee in 2017.

Through the help of Srinivasan Trust and Kannamangalam Tamil Nadu Grama Bank, the group's main objective was to assist in enhancing the farmers' standard of living.

Lakshmipathi and the other farmers in the group relied on renting tractors for their agricultural labour prior to the formation of the Vivekananda Joint Responsibility Committee. Each farmer spent Rs 4,000 on tractor rentals per acre then, which was expensive.

Later, the farmers contacted Srinivasan Trust in the Arani cluster, which assists women groups in obtaining financial aid, to lower costs and gain access to bank loans. She also took help from the Trust in order to provide financial assistance to the men in her village.

Farmers now have access to bank loans to buy their own tractors and other agricultural equipment owing to the aid provided by SST and Kannamangalam Tamil Nadu Grama Bank. With the help of the SST team, the Vivekananda Joint Responsibility Committee was able to obtain its first bank loan in December 2017 from the Kannamangalam Tamil Nadu Grama Bank for Rs 1,000,000.

The organization utilized the financing to buy a second-hand, outdated tractor that was shared by all the local farmers. Due to the fact that they were no longer merely paying the cost of gasoline (Rs 1,000) per acre, the farmers were able to considerably lower the cost of tractor rental. The group rented the tractor out to other farmers at a rate of INR 900 per hour in addition to utilizing it for their own agricultural tasks, giving them a second source of income.

The Vivekananda Committee obtained their second bank loan from the Kannamangalam Bank in March 2019 for Rs 1,60,000. They were able to pay off their previous external debt of Rs 50,000 with interest and buy a trailer with the help of this loan.

The group's transportation expenditures were greatly reduced by using the trailer to deliver fertilizers to their fields and transport the harvested rice bundles to the paddy mills. The farmers were paying close to Rs 3300 per month in transport costs before they bought a trailer (i.e. Rs 2,000 per acre for fertilizer transportation and INR 1330 per trip for paddy transportation).

The group was able to reduce these expenses to just the cost of petrol after having their own trailer, along with an extra source of income by renting out the trailer to other farmers for INR 500 per load.

Further, the Vivekananda Committee obtained their third bank loan in the amount of Rs 2,40,000 in March 2021, with which they were able to buy one cultivator plough, two rotavator ploughs, and another old tractor for Rs 1,40,000.

The Srinivasan Services Trust and NABARD's assistance have led the farmers toward self-sufficiency and financial independence. Their way of life has greatly improved because they are now renting out additional revenue.