20 Sep Ms. Geeta Bhandari
Ms. Geeta Bhandari is 30 years old and pursuing her bachelor level. She is a church member. She has two children with her husband. Elder son is studying at grade two. Her husband has a seasonal job in the trekking agency. He works from April to June and September to December. Rest of the time, he helps Geeta at home. Geeta and her family have been living on a leased land from one year in Khariko Bot, Banasthali (Kathmandu District). She has to pay NRs 60,000 per year to her landlord and has signed a seven-year lease.
Milijuli Samaj Nepal’s partner organization (Cooperative) PMSCCL has provided NRs 50,000 to Geeta as a revolving fund which she has to repay within a year. Since the interest rate is high in other financial institutions, Geeta is very thankful to PMSCCL for providing the loan without interest. Geeta has started vegetable gardening and poultry farming from the loan. This year she sold vegetables worth NRs 200,000 she grown in her garden. From the poultry farm, she saves NRs 10,000 each month after deducting the expenses (chicken feed, grains, and medicines). Since she has been raising Laced and Giriraj breeds, her chicken fetch high price in the market. Along with this, Geeta has taken additional loan NRs 650,000 from PMSCCL. From the loan, she has built a three-roomed house and a chicken coop in the property. Two rooms are occupied by Geeta’s family whereas one has been rented out for NRs. 3000 a month. Geeta says, ‘before I start doing vegetable gardening and poultry farming, I was not able to utilize my time. I had an idle time at home. My husband was the only provider in the family. Now, I can make some financial contribution to my son’s education and bear some of the household expenses. In the course of doing poultry farming and vegetable garden together, I learnt that there is more profit in poultry business than in vegetable gardening. Since my children are small, I have to give more time to them. Farm work needs lot of physical strength as well. Beside this, there is a high risk of losing vegetables due to insects and diseases. So, I have decided to focus only on poultry farming in the coming days. For this, I recently have added 50 chicks and ordered a bigger coop. Local meat shops have already contacted me for buying my chickens.’
Nowadays, Geeta is enjoying her busy days and appreciates the support PMSCCL provided her to transform her life. According to Geeta, she is not able to work away from home as her younger son is just one year old. Geeta still breastfeeds him. So, this business has multiple benefits to her as she can take care of her son and engage in income generation activity being at home. She requests PMSCCL to provide her training on poultry farming so that she would run her business in a more commercial way. She is also committed to repay the loan on time.