It is a perfect example of how sharing and unity, brings strength. During last several years, farmers in Cortalim were struggling hard for the finances and none came to the rescue of farmers. Realising this need, Antonio Vas an ex-sarpanch of Cortalim and now chairman of the 11-member registered Cortalim Urban Cooperative Credit Society, took up this unique challenge to launch a cooperative bank for the comfort of the villagers. Since the inception of the idea, it took him three years to achieve this.
Antonio Vas met at least 534 villagers out of the total 8000 to convince them and finally it bore fruit on February 7, 2016. He later floated shares at Rs 100 each. “Today we have four bank staff from the village itself and we see that we have at least 10 people from our village coming to opening their account with us on a daily basis. We have a share capital of Rs 5.4 lakh now. Although the job undertaken was not easy, but since I personally know almost all our villagers, it helped me complete the task,” Mr Vas told Herald.
Apart from offering soft loans without much of paperwork, the cooperative will also help market farmers’ produce as they have a single window collection center adjacent to the bank. “We take the produce (paddy, coconut, cashew etc) of the farmers to which the State government gives 70 per cent subsidy. This has surely eliminated middlemen and the farmers are getting good returns in the bargain,” added Mr Vas who is also the Zila Parishad member of the Cortalim constituency.
Another innovative step which the cooperative has recently taken is that they have purchased a tractor, harvesting machine and power tiller to rent it out to the farmers at a nominal price. This is being done on an hourly basis to help those farmers who cannot afford to invest in machinery. Also, it is a boon for the villagers in Cortalim as majority of them are old aged persons as their sons have either gone out of India in search of better opportunities or are not interested in farming.
“These machines are in great demand and at times, we have to hire these machines from the market to help the farmers. We never expected this response from the aged villagers. It makes their life so simple,” said the chairman of the Cooperative Society.
Paddy farmer from Cortalim Estilo Mendez said, “Thanks to the leader of farmers Antonio Vas for taking initiative in opening the society which would always be remembered by the people.”
“Cortalim constituency which consists of large number of fishermen, among them majority belongs to SC/ST community have now found a bank of our own which would help to overcome the crisis. Fishermen community have lots of problem and nobody has understood. The Cortalim Urban Cooperative Bank Ltd has been a friend of fishermen,” said Jose Furtado, a fisherman from Cortalim.
Lawrence Misquita, a cashew farmer said, “It is like a dream come true. The new bank in our village has reduced our hardships. Earlier we used to go to Sancoale or to Vasco to obtain banking services and spend half a day for a simple transaction. As a cashew farmer, I have seen how this Cortalim farmers club has been promoting and helping people like us. I feel the cooperative has succeeded in his mission of reaching out to grass root people by getting people together and opening bank.”
Enthused by this response, the cooperative plans to add more facilities like net banking, ATM machines, payment center for water and electricity bills for the villagers. At present they do have strong room and safe, printed pass book, instant SMS alerts, easy and instant loan disbursement etc.
