Subhra Jyoti Bharali grew up in the Barpeta district of Assam. After obtaining his MBA from the Indian Institute of Rural Management in Anand, Bharali put in four years working in the development sector in Delhi. Motivated by a desire to address the poverty issues in his native Assam, he gave up his job and went to Bangladesh with the express objective of learning more about the microfinance programmes conducted successfully in many remote villages there.

Back in India, Bharali set up ASOMI, a non-governmental organisation with its area of operations lying in Moregaon district of Assam in 2001. Initially, when he tried to extend financial help to the rural poor in remote areas, he met with stiff resistance. Most of the villagers were under the sway of moneylenders and pawn brokers who along with local government officials and lower and upper middle class households in the area opposed the idea of microfinance for the poor. In the beginning, ASOMI did not have sufficient funds to initiate the microfinance programme and Bharali even mortgaged his personal property to obtain a loan for the purpose.

Later, Bharali came to know of ICICI  Bank’s initiatives in the microfinance sector and adopted the partnership model in February 2006 to meet the continuous fund requirements. In less than a year ASOMI has been able to increase its reach from 4500 clients to 8500.

Today, ASOMI has spread to ten districts in Assam and follows the Grameen Bank lending model. Awareness camps in the target area are arranged to inform the poor about microfinance. The borrowers are then organised into small homogeneous groups who receive small loans based on the funds received from ICICI Bank.  

ASOMI is also planning to offer micro savings  facilities  to their clients with the assistance of banks. Future plans include the setting up of agricultural and dairy marketing units to enable the poor to increase their current income levels.