In Manipur, an old vegetable vendor had gone to a Bank seeking Rs 2,000 loan. But the Bank Manager had turned down her request. After some days, she went to the Bank again only to get the same answer. Then as a last effort, she told the Manager that "she will tell Poojary". He got scared and sanctioned her loan. I came to know about this through a newspaper report.

Bank staff were scared of me. For some time, I was holding charge of the Income Tax Department and Customs and Excise Departments too. Majority of questions asked by the members of Lok Sabha were pertaining to these departments. I used to prepare well to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the members. After observing my style of functioning, The Hindustan Times wrote a piece on me which read, "When Poojary is speaking on any issue or replying to a question in Lok Sabha, it appears like Shakuntala Devi (human computer) is reading out numbers and data. It seems like a Computer is speaking."

Loan Mela programme became successful despite stiff opposition from some quarters because of my dedication, honesty and commitment to do something for the society. My belief that power is to serve people, not to misuse it, was the greatest contributor to the success of Loan Mela programme. After Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi continued me in the Finance Portfolio with a promotion as Minister of State.

I had experienced poverty and the difficulties that come with it during my childhood. That is the reason I was hell bent on implementing Loan Mela. People used to get mesmerized by my speech. Their eyes would go moist. I conducted Loan Melas in all the 224 Constituencies in Karnataka and in every programme thousands of people used to attend. Around 25 crore people got loans during my tenure.