Poverty should be in museum instead of human life: Yunus

New Delhi, Jan 30 (UNI) Nobel laureate and chief architect of Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, main micro lender of that country, Muhammad Yunus today pitched for the removal of poverty and said ''it should be in a museum instead of the human life''.

India has a huge population which is out of the financial system.

''This should be checked'' to remove poverty from the country, Prof Yunus said while delivering a special address on micro-financing here.

As on March 2006, 22.2 million self help groups disbursed Rs 11,400 crore as loans to poorer section of the society, with a growth of 51 per cent in priority states. This was against the projected annual demand ranging between Rs 75,000 crore to Rs 1,00,000 crore.

To facilitate the penetration of micro finance services in the country, the government is working on a micro finance bill. The same is expected to be introduced in the forthcoming budget session of Parliament.

To a question on suicides by formers in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Prof Yunus said this problem can be solved by instituting such a model of financing which does not make borrowers feel guilty in case they cannot pay back the loan amount.

Suicide cases are increasing in Vidarbha even after a Rs 3,750 crore relief package for six districts of the region, which was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year.

A friendly system of micro-financing, Prof Yunus said, could be beneficial in such cases. ''This will happen only when micro-financing is taken up as a non-loss-non-dividend function.'' UNI