how to retrieve value from sqlite database using cursor query?

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Java

SQLite

I have inserted row into the table 'balance_table'.

//insert:
 public long insertinBalance(String new_bal1) {
        SQLiteDatabase db = helper.getWritableDatabase();
        ContentValues contentvalues = new ContentValues();
        contentvalues.put(VivzHelper.AVL_BALANCE, new_bal1);
        long id = db.insert(VivzHelper.BALANCE_TABLE, null, contentvalues);
        helper.close();
        return id;
    }

// retrieve column value

 public Cursor balance() {
        SQLiteDatabase db = helper.getReadableDatabase();
        String[] columns = {VivzHelper.BAL_UID, VivzHelper.AVL_BALANCE}; 
        Cursor c1 = db.query(VivzHelper.BALANCE_TABLE, columns,null , null, 
        null,null,null);
        existing_bal = "0";
        if(c1.getCount() > 0){
            existing_bal = (c1.getString(1));
        }
        else
        {
        }
        helper.close();
        return c1;

I wanted to retrieve the value from column 'avl_balance' and pass into a variable 'existing_bal' using the above code. I get error in logcat stating like:Caused by: android.database.CursorIndexOutOfBoundsException: Index -1 requested, with a size of 1
How to rectify to get the value passed into variable 'existing_bal'.