Publication:Times Of India Mumbai; Date:Feb 5, 2009; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1
More youngsters awash in debt
Rucha Biju Chitrodia | TIMES NEWS NETWORK
l Atul, 28, borrowed more than Rs 25 lakh to invest in the commodities market. He lost the entire amount.
l Raghunath, a young banker, took loans totalling Rs 18 lakh to trade in shares. His investments came crashing down when the market plunged.
l Abhijeet, just 23, had a good job in an IT company. He went overboard, taking loans of Rs 10 lakh to finance stock purchases. Now he has lost his job in the economic slowdown.
It’s a sign of the times that an increasing number of young borrowers is walking into debt counselling centres. Many of them had borrowed heavily to invest in the markets during the boom. Their predicament owes as much to the sudden economic slump as to a poor understanding of the workings of new age credit options. Now they’re grappling with huge debt, which debt counsellors say is the result of trying to repay one loan with another.
Debt counselling initiatives—commonplace in the developed world but relatively new in India—advise borrowers and offer credit restructuring assistance to those caught in a debt trap. The services are free, and cover diverse categories of debt, such as credit cards, personal loans and home loans. Says Nutan Lugani of Disha Financial Counselling, Delhi, “Many youngsters are excessively leveraged. They live well, but don’t believe in saving. If they lose their job, or if the market crashes, they have nothing to fall back on.’’
(Names have been changed to protect the identity of debtors.)
HOW COUNSELLING CENTRES HELP
They can analyze your finances and educate you about the fine print
They can help you figure out what payments you can keep up, and help you negotiate with lenders to restructure loans and waive charges
They can help you list assets—property, shares, mutual funds, gold, and the like—and advise you on selling non-productive ones
They may suggest ways to increase income streams ‘Debts getting bigger, debtors younger’ Mumbai: Until a year ago, the clientele of debt counsellors consisted largely of middleaged people who found themselves in a spot because they had made unfortunate career decisions or who were unable to repay money borrowed for medical expenses or for a child’s marriage or education. The size of debt was lower too.
Today, debts are more substantial. “We get people with very high levels of default. Earlier, they would come to us with debts of Rs 10-15 lakh. Now some cases go up to Rs 25 lakh or even 50 lakh,’’ says V N Kulkarni, chief counsellor at Abhay Credit Counselling Centre in Mumbai.
Mumbai has two debt counselling centres. One is Abhay Credit Counselling, an initiative of the Bank of India, and the other is Disha, an ICICI Bank venture. Both are creditor-neutral, that is, their services can be used by anyone, not just those who have loans from the Bank of India or ICICI Bank. Besides Mumbai, Abhay has centres in Chennai, Wardha, and Gumla in Jharkhand. Disha has centres in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kolkata and Ludhiana.
Kulkarni says that until recently, the Mumbai centre got about three people a day, but that number has doubled now. Centre staff attribute the increase in part to rising awareness about such initiatives.
While debt counsellors welcome stricter credit laws, they say that credit education should be mandatory in schools and colleges so that young people learn how to avoid the debt trap.
About INgene blog : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog
About INgene : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog:
This blog explores the detailed characteristics of Young-India and explains the finer & crucial differences they have with their global peers. The blog also establishes the theory of “adopted differentiation” (Copyright Kaustav SG,2007) and how the Indian & Inglodian youth are using this as a tool to differentiate themselves from the “aam aadmi” (mass population of India) to establish their new found identity.
The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous field of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties.
Though superficially the youth all over the world exhibits similar [degree of] attitude, [traits of] interests & [deliverance of] opinion but a detailed observation reveals the finer differential characteristics which are crucial and often ignored while targeting this group as a valued consumer base. India is one of the youngest countries in the world with 60% of its population less then 24 years of age and is charted as the most prospective destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney’s Global Retail Opportunity Report, 2007. With the first ever non-socialistic generation’s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadily growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entrepreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailers to target the “Youngisthan” (young-India). But, the secret remains in the understanding of the finer AIOs of this generation. The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five) and can be broadly divided (socio-psychologically) into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (copyright Kaustav SG 2008). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization, high traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SEC) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are basically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are affluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy & the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between east & west, developing & developed countries etc.), highly influenced by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart.
This blog explores the detailed characteristics of Young-India and explains the finer & crucial differences they have with their global peers. The blog also establishes the theory of “adopted differentiation” (Copyright Kaustav SG,2007) and how the Indian & Inglodian youth are using this as a tool to differentiate themselves from the “aam aadmi” (mass population of India) to establish their new found identity.
The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous field of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties.
Though superficially the youth all over the world exhibits similar [degree of] attitude, [traits of] interests & [deliverance of] opinion but a detailed observation reveals the finer differential characteristics which are crucial and often ignored while targeting this group as a valued consumer base. India is one of the youngest countries in the world with 60% of its population less then 24 years of age and is charted as the most prospective destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney’s Global Retail Opportunity Report, 2007. With the first ever non-socialistic generation’s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadily growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entrepreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailers to target the “Youngisthan” (young-India). But, the secret remains in the understanding of the finer AIOs of this generation. The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five) and can be broadly divided (socio-psychologically) into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (copyright Kaustav SG 2008). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization, high traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SEC) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are basically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are affluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy & the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between east & west, developing & developed countries etc.), highly influenced by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart.
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