A committee, also called a kitty, is a rotating savings and credit association: a group of people each contribute a fixed sum monthly and one member takes the whole pot each month, by lot or by auction, until everyone has had a turn.
It is the standard informal savings instrument in Punjab, run among women, among shopkeepers, among workers in a factory, and among migrants abroad.
It works entirely on reputation. There is no contract, no collateral and no enforcement other than social standing, and default is rare because the cost of it is being unable to join another.
It is how a great many Punjabi households have financed weddings, migration, vehicles and business capital, in India and in the diaspora.
It also collapses periodically when an organiser absconds, and those cases reach the courts.
It is izzat operating as a financial instrument, and it moves very large sums with no paperwork at all.
The gurdwara committee, the mandir committee, the youth club, the sports committee and the welfare society are the basic institutions of a Punjabi village and neighbourhood, and their elections are contested seriously.
They collect money, run buildings, organise events and hold funds, and the diaspora sends money through them because there is nothing else to send it through.
There is no register of them, no audit requirement for most, and no study of how much money passes through them, which is probably a very large amount.