Meet Manimozhi, grinding away for her family’s future

By Shivani Kochhar

With a grandchild on the way, Manimozhi needed funds fast. Her family business, a flour mill, was failing. But without capital and expertise she couldn’t change her fortunes.

A new family member

Manimozhi wanted to give her grandson the best start in life; in Pondicherry, this means being born in a private hospital. Only 1.2 percent of Indian gross domestic product is spent on public healthcare, and many government hospitals lack basic standards of hygiene, particularly in rural areas. For people like Manimozhi, they are an absolute last resort.

Pondicherry, India

Becoming a businesswoman

Manimozhi joined a Hand in Hand Self-Help Group with the hopes of using her loan to pay for the costs of the birth. Instead, after receiving training in financial literacy, she ploughed the loan into the faltering mill business she’d inherited from her father and paid for the birth using pure profit.

Manimozhi’s mill grinds rice, wheat and grains into flour or oil. It’s bring your own grain: customers are only charged for the grinding service. Using her loan, Manimozhi modernised the mill with an automated elevator that feeds paddy into the mill more quickly, speeding up production. Now, customers travel for 30 minutes by tractor to come to the mill. “I’ve opened my own private bank account so I can save better,” she says.

Keep calm and carry on

Those savings came in handy when the mill was damaged, its roof torn clean off, during a severe statewide storm that killed almost 50 people in Pondicherry and nearby Tamil Nadu. The cost of rebuilding was IRN 50,000 INR (US$ 766). With her savings in store, Manimozhi wasn’t held back: she got on with the rebuild quietly.

Manimozhi’s is now the longest standing flour mill in the area. The business has been in the family for 55 years and is already providing for two more generations. She now knows how to support her family through the good times and the bad.

Manimozhi’s results