Sumi Akter improved the quality of employment through microcredit

Mrs. Sumi Akter, 25, lives in laxmipur district with her husband Mr. Alauddin, and two children in a joint family. This joint family consists of Alauddin and his two brothers and their wives and children. This household has poultry and vegetable farming IGA. They have a pond where they carry on fish farming. In those activities, no one has any individual claim as it is operated jointly. Besides, Alauddin and his brothers have their own activities to generate income and each of them has full claim over income.

Initially, Alauddin was a staff in the local tea shop and a part-time ‘helper’ in a commercially operated vehicle locally known as ‘Tempu’. But this was not enough for managing the household well. At that time Sumi brought into her husband’s consideration that if she would take a loan from any MFI in that case with that amount of money along with accumulated money from other sources could be used as capital to have a vehicle of their own. That inspired Alauddin to start operating his own commercial vehicle. Initially, in the year 2009, he bought a vehicle locally known as ‘Nachiman’. At that time Sumi took a loan from TMSS an amount of Tk. 10 thousand, which she gave to her husband. This brought success to his household which led him to have a CNG auto-rickshaw of his own. So in 2013, Alauddin bought a CNG auto-rickshaw. To buy that CNG auto-rickshaw he used savings, money received from selling the old vehicle, and other informal sources along with a loan of Tk. 30 thousand taken by Sumi from JCF.

Though in this venture neither any external employment nor new employment created, quality of employment has been upgraded. Alauddin emerged as a driver of an auto-rickshaw of his own which brought him the better income from a very low-paid staff of a local tea stall. So creating employment is not only the dimension of microcredit, upgrading the quality of employment is also another dimension.