Financial Vulnerability among Tribes in Rural Areas: Certain Observations from a Study

Studies of vulnerability have gained wide currency among policy makers and governments in recent times. This paper is an endeavour to examine the problem of financial vulnerability among the tribes in the Wayanad district of Kerala. In Wayanad district, a tribe concentrated district in the State, the study has revealed that near 94.8 percent of tribes are having bank accounts. Within the tribal communities, Kuruma, a forward non-primitive tribe community has near 98 percent of households with bank accounts. The labour market intervention through the programmes of government has been catalyst in making tribes banking included. Tribes working under MGNREGS have been mandatorily forced to avail of bank accounts unless they would not be entitled to receive remuneration under the MGNREGS. The real financial vulnerability of people especially the low income and economically deprived communities like the tribes stems from their incessant dependence on the informal sources of finance. More than sixty percent of tribes depend on informal sources for credit requirements and among different tribe communities, Adiya and Paniya, two backward tribe communities, depend more on informal credit sources. Kuruma community, which is recognised as an advanced tribe community in the Wayanad district, appears to have been depending more on formal players for their credit needs. The present study calls for adopting strategies focusing on rural areas in order to reduce the financial vulnerability of socially and economically disadvantaged segments of people like the Tribes.