Menaka has expanded her rice business

Menaka was busy drying rice grains in the open space outside her home when we had arrived. As we sat outside here, she began to narrate how the loan helped them to expand her boiled rice business. She used the loan amount to make her first bulk purchase of rice grains of almost 4 quintals and started selling packaged boiled rice on a steady basis since then. She procures a few quintals of rice grains from the wholesale market every season, boils them on the makeshift brick furnace at her home, packages and sells it at the local market. She is able to run this almost throughout the year, except in the rainy season when it is difficult to dry the rice grains. Earlier, she used to carry out this business only on a very small scale and she and her husband were full-time agricultural labourers. But now she fully handles the business while her husband continues to work in the fields. With the increased earnings, she is able to send her youngest daughter to college and coaching classes, after marrying off her two older daughters. She is thankful to all her lenders for the loan.