Usury-hit Narikuravas seek govt help to avail bank loans

People from the Narikurava community, who are caught in the clutches of usury, have appealed tothe district administration to help them avail of bank loans so that they can escape the clutches of usurers. “We don’t have (anything for) surety or any other option to start our business, and have to depend on usurers,” said D Sudhakar of the community in Therku Vagaikulam village near Manur.


This 30-year-old is one among the nearly 30 families that sought bank loans and submitted petitions to district collector Sandeep Nanduri during his visit to the village for an event on Wednesday. People from the community who traditionally sell beads have also ventured into selling fancy items such as artificial chains and bracelets and toys at temple festivals seeking better livelihood prospects in recent years.

It is a similar practice among people from thecommunity at Pettai in Tirunelveli and Cheranmahadevi in the district. Festival business last only five Tamil months in a year – Panguni, Chithirai, Vaigasi, Puratasi and Aadi– in TamilNadu.

“Templefestivals are only on Tuesdays and Fridays. So we will only have business for around 45 days a year,” adds Sudhakar.

For a couple of months a section of them go to Kerala during the Sabarimala season. But this season they are on the lookout for wild honey bee combs to collect honey from wells and trees in the forest. “As a team of four or five people we are lucky if we get a litre or two of honey and in the process get stung by a few hundred bees. We share this meagre income,” said K Chinras, 24.

Even so, he added, they primarily depend on festival season sale as their main source of income. For this business, they have a modified pushcart that can be connected to the metal frame of a bike. Like a caravan, the bike rider and his wife ride with the shop to festival sales points across Tirunelveli and nearby districts such as Tuticorin and Kanyakumari.

The nomadic businessmen said that they get a margin of 20 per cent in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 on festival days. There is also risk of theft of up to 500 a day when these illiterate traders are busy attending their prospective buyers.

“A second hand bike costs Rs10,000 to ?15,000. Investment for the pushcart is ?30,000 and we need ?20,000 for fancy items. In all we need only ?60,000 to ?65,000 for establishing our business. Unable to get this money, we are borrowing from usurers. So we have sought help from the collector,” added Sakthivel, 61, a head of the community.