New Delhi: Today on NDTV Dialogues, we look at banking for the poor and complete financial inclusion of the excluded. The Jan Dhan Yojna has been a flagship scheme for this government, but we look beyond on the show. How will it actually work on the ground? How do you bring in people who have been excluded for years into the Indian economy? How will they be a part of the whole growth tree?
NDTV: Hello and welcome to NDTV Dialogues, a conversation of ideas. Today we look at banking for the poor and complete financial inclusion of the excluded. The Jan Dhan Yojna has been a flagship scheme for this government, but we look beyond on the show tonight. How will it actually work on the ground; how do you bring in people who have been excluded for years into the Indian economy; how will they be a part of the whole growth tree? Joining me on this, I am joined by a distinguished panel, I am joined by the man known as the banker to the poor, Nobel Laureate and Grameen Bank founder Professor Muhammad Yunus; I am also joined by Pramod Bhasin, founder of Genpact, he is also part of the Indian Angels, Indian Angel venture capitalist and he also heads The Skills Academy; from Bangalore I am joined by V Balakrishnan, formerly from Infosys, he is now heading the Exfinity Venture Partners and he also deals with Micro Gram which is looking at rural entrepreneurs and has also now applied to start his own small bank. I am joined by Milind Kamble as well of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry; I am also joined by Monica Halan, the editor of Mint Money and joining me from Ahmedabad, I am joined by Jayshree Vyas, she heads the SEWA Bank. Thank you all very much for coming in and Professor Yunus it is a great honour to have you here.
Muhammad Yunus: I am delighted to be here.
NDTV: You are the third Nobel Laureate who's been on this show, and its fascinating to have you with us, and Grameen Bank of course set a new paradigm, when you set it up Indira and many other politicians had gone to Bangladesh to learn from it, but you are now looking at social business, tell us about that.
Muhammad Yunus: Well, social business came along with what we did, micro credit for Grameen Bank, but there are other problems, which are not addressed by the credit programme itself. So we had to come up with other issues, so every time I see a problem I try to create a business to solve it, rather than go through the charity route, because in the charity, you do a good job, putting money and getting the problem solved for a while, but the money doesn't come back. So I thought why don't I create a business for the same objective and then try that, then the money will keep coming back, so if money comes back I can return the money and recycle the money over and over again endlessly, so it becomes very powerful. That's what we started calling social business, business to solve problems, its a non-dividend company, to solve human problems/ We had created a lot of these programmes, some of them became nationally run businesses, and so on, like we have a solar energy company, small company we created to bring electricity in the poor household in the villages, villages don't have electricity, so started selling a solar home system, very simple device, people understand very quickly. You pay monthly over a period of 3 months, 3 years and you pay back the whole amount and that becomes yours and you don't have to pay for electricity, you don't have to pay for kerosene, nothing. Today we have over a half million homes with solar energy because of this company Grameen Shakti. We started by selling to 2-3 solar homes per month, today we sell more than 1000 solar systems per day, so that's the kind of lift off, and it is not to make money for me or any of the investors in here, because the investors are not interested in making money for themselves. But it has to come back and cover all the costs and make a small profit so that it can be ploughed back into the business so it can grow, continue to grow. So this is one example. There are many such things, we are in the health care, we are in education, we are in vocational training and we are in environmental issues, water, within Bangladesh. Now that ideas are spreading in other countries we do lots of things in many other countries.
NDTV: So business with a heart. I would like to bring in Pramod Bhasin, who has been described as an angel. Venture Capitalist would seem contradictory, but in some sense, also I think, touches on the same things, which are in accord wuth social business, that you look at how you can make, you can actually change society, but perhaps make money doing it. Dr Yunus however says it should be ploughed back into business, but yours is a different concept. Tell us about that and when we look at problems, which seem insurmountable, whether you look at health, whether you look at the education system, whether you look at malnutrition, how can a successful business like yours actually make a difference?
Pramod Bhasin: It's a very interesting area because, you know, the whole concept of social business or social venture capitalism is gaining enormous ground. If you go to the US or UK or any developed country, the amount of money now beginning to think about investing in some projects is growing exponentially, whether or not you plough it all back into the business. To me the concept of solving business problems, as Professor Yunus said, is very important, Sir, we run a small firm, which precisely does that. I call it a virtual fund, with a colleague of mine and what we are after is looking at ideas, which are scalable, as Professor Yunus said, ideas of, you know, lending money to schools, to allow very cheap, low cost schools to flourish across the place. You can't do it at a high cost, so how do you do it at a much lower cost? So building water filtration plants which allow people to filter their daily intake of water very cheaply, very easily, all very scalable. I think what they often miss is either skills to scale the system of the processes, perhaps where we can help, certainly capital and equity. I don't know if we would plough all the money back, certainly the intention of a lot of people whom we talked to, who are in these areas, is far more about, we don't need big returns, we are okay with a medium return, but the intention of them is quite different. The intention is to say lets make sure this is sustainable because the danger, I find, is that if you are into a business where you are not making any money, is how long will it last and where will it go the day we take our eye off the ball? If you could build a business, which provides alternative returns, which you can keep investing, that's a very powerful concept. I also like the idea of one more thing, I love the idea of solving problems, because there is a purpose to that. I think we all believe erroneously the only purpose we survive is the purpose to make money, which is not true. You know if you look at people in healthcare, if you look at people in micro-finance, then you look at many others, they are driven by something beyond just making money and I think tapping into that is very important. And I think this entire area of social venture capitalism will take enormous ground in India, I'm seeing enormous amount of activity,very, very encouraging.
NDTV: I think what's interesting perhaps is re-looking at how we do business in the future and in the now, we've seen from Thomas Piketty onwards, I think the whole concept, how capitalism has worked, how growth has worked in India. Mr Balakrishnan I would like to bring you in on that because interestingly you are from AAP, which promises a new model of governance, but beyond that, from your years in business, and there has been one view that growth model has worked because you know, you've provided jobs. Take Infosys for example, you provided jobs on merit, you provided jobs to thousands and thousands of people and you've improved a whole eco system. Yet there is another view, which said the growth model in India has benefited far to few and we can't continue in this way. Hope there will be trickle down effect. You need to do something radical now. Your take on that Sir, going by the perspectives you just heard as well.
V Balakrishnan: No, I think if you look at the liberalisation which took place in '91, it was a great thing to happen for the country, because it opened up the markets, lot of foreign capital came, lot of jobs created but the growth has been uneven. Certain sections of the society were not able to get benefit of the growth and it created a lot of disparity among the economy. It's not new to India only, even in developed countries like US, they are still grappling with the issue of income disparity. So I think the whole game is how do you make sure the bank, banking credit or banking system is available for all the citizens in the country? That was a challenge. The government has been pushing to make sure the un-banked come into the banking system, but it's an enormous challenge in India. If you look at the rural area, 75% of the people don't have any access to a banking system, more than 50% don't have any access to any formal or informal banking system, so how do you get into any banking system and make sure they get the credit for what they aspire to be? So MFIs have played a larger role, but still the size is small. I think with the new technology emerging like mobility, like the payment banks and even the Jan Dhan programme, which is a good programme because they are able to generate some Rs 10 crore into bank accounts in a very short period of time. So if we use the technology and if we used the eco system well, we should be able to fund the un-banked people in the country and they can become entrepreneurs. See, if you can create more individual entrepreneurs in the country I think the income disparity will go over the period of time.
NDTV: I want to bring Mr Milind Kamble on this point. Traditionally our whole concept of the growth model I talked about has been from top to down, but what Professor Yunus and many others have suggested is that it should be bottom up. I think Professor Yunus, when he first started, many people said that this can never happen, these are theories which are discussed, as I said, the capital society is of the world, your take on this Sir, because you started off very much as, on the junior level, you are now heading the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
Milind Kamble: Yeah , basically I thank the new economic reforms in the country and they have opened a lot of avenues to first comers, new people, in the country. What happened there was a very big licence raj in the country, some of products made by some of the companies only, but after 1990 reforms, new economic reforms, almost all the new companies which came in, we all people got the opportunity to serve the new companies because the old companies were having their vendor base and all that. So for a, like me, like a thousands of Dalit youth got the opportunity in businesses and all that. Now the biggest problem for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe people in the country and the entrepreneurs, which I am heading, is the access to the capital market. And access to the equity and debt market, this is the biggest problem because in India the legacy of lending system, is a collateral base, and the people from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, you cannot, you know, we all know the history of India, they have been discriminated on socially, economically and educationally. So these people are not having any assets to give the collateral to the bank. So this is the biggest problem to create the axis to the these people, new start up companies, entrepreneurs, and all that and the biggest problem in our country for a new entrepreneurs and start up, it is an early stage funding that is the biggest problem. But in now-a-days so many venture capitalists, and these people are coming in India to support , these kind of entrepreneurs, the first generation and start up companies, this is a very good sign in the country.
NDTV: So we need a second generation of reforms, perhaps like 1991, like liberalization. Jayshree, we ask if you could come in on that as well, because we talked so much about banking access and SEWA Bank was perhaps the first model in India, you head of course the SEWA Women's Bank, to actually provide easy loans to women in the cooperative form. Do you find the real problem is that SEWA and another initiatives like this has been one aspect, but how do you mainstream this across India? These are good initiatives but are localized in some extent to SEWA organisation or others like you. Why isn't this a part of mainstream banking system?
Jayshree Vyas: I think we are very happy with this whole concept of Jan Dhan Yojna, see it is covering first of all opening a bank account and savings. It's also talking about insurance; its also talking about pension, so this is exactly what has evolved over a period of time. I would say that is the mainstreaming, may be not mainstream institutions, but mainstreaming the concept l ike you know, 40 years ago, when this started, not we, but the women themselves started a bank by contributing their own capital. They were just saying that we just need a bank, because they wanted credit and they were borrowing it from moneylenders at a very high rate of interest. But the objective was of course ultimately of the bank was, the bank was ultimately to help these women, for women to come out of this whole vicious cycle of poverty with their capital, with their business and also expand their economic activities. So what had evolved over the period of time was, we realised, that it was not only credit, it was they also need, because we saw they were saving, they were collecting, they were of course expanding their business and one sickness, one, one accident and everything was gone. So we started this whole thing, we started linking with insurance companies providing insurance as a service, savings, so we were surprised that women were saving in the backyard or they were saving with neighbours and losing their money. So systematically, when we motivated them, facilitated them by collecting from them a small amount, so this is what no frills account we are talking about. But the concept of no frills account we started from the beginning because women were wanting to save Rs 2, the concept of BC for example, we already have these bank saathis, so women from the slums, women from the villages who were leaders, they were allowed to or they were authorised to collect savings and loan collections from doorsteps. So you know this has worked because women who did not have saving of, you know, even Rs. 100, they have thousands of rupees, they are saving , not only that, even the concept of whole financial literacy...
NDTV: Jayshree, banking from the grass roots. Monica Halan, I would like to just bring you in. Banking from the grass roots, these are stories we never hear, we never look at when we talk about the economy. When we talk about what needs to be done, which are not front page, we exclude millions of people, billions of people just because of this. Do you think its also time for a complete shift in the way we look at economy reform and what the needs of people are, what needs of Indians are when we talk about liberalisation or second wave of reforms?
Monika Halan: Absolutely. I'll come to your question in a minute. But I just wanted to react to something that Professor Yunus and Mr Bhasin said. So the whole idea of social businesses and solving a problem where it exists at the grass roots, I worry about two things and both are related to the government unfortunately. One is that there is a disruptive power of the government to come in and say that, suppose you are funding a low cost school, but they will come in and say that you must have a school of this size, your teachers have to be paid that much. So there's a disruptive power that the government has which could cause harm to such businesses. And the second is that these are actually the work that the government has to do and this is sort of a disruptive idea, which says that are you then not taking the pressure of the government by providing a solution, which is outside of the government, so that the pressure of the citizens on the government actually does reduce. So that's something that I wanted to open up for debate and coming to your question, look news is what news is. If there is enough activity on the ground it does become front-page news. And I would wait to see how the payment banks, which is a fantastic idea, which I think will explode banking across the country and then we should see what sort of headlines we get, once those banks are actually a reality.
NDTV: In fact India is in a cusp of a huge opportunity to perhaps lead the world and Professor Yunus, just to bring you in on that, we mentioned earlier that how there's a complete social churning as well and I think that's why ideas like your's have gained such momentum and Angel Venture Capitalists and many other ideas, yours as well as SEWA, which has been around. Because of the social churning the feeling that we have to change the way things are working, that is at the core of what we're looking at here. How do we make it in a way, which perhaps Monica's point is, that as long as we do it in a kind of NGO, which is now, as some would say, seen with suspicion in India, if we do it at that level it's not something you'll find is accessible to people perhaps in rural India etc. where the government has that penetration? So when you talk about social businesses what about social politics or the social economy? A social budget at the India context, many have pointed to the fact that interestingly when India was at the peak of its growth reform, malnutrition levels in India were higher than even Bangladesh, which is seen much more as a traditionally poor country. How do you balance the social needs with the economic needs?
Muhammad Yunus: First of all we need to redesign our economic thinking, economic framework, to redesign our society. If we keep on the same framework we'll produce the same thing. Like the income disparity, it's getting worse, it's ugly. The high concentration at the top and the distance between the top and the bottom is getting wider and the bottom is becoming bigger and bigger. So, we need to address something, which will work the reverse way. If you do the same way or continue to do the same thing, it will create poverty, it will continue to distance rich people versus poor people, so these are the things that we have created, a world which is a money centric world. All of us are chasing money because that's what the theory says, you have to maximise profit; you have to chase profit. So as a result we have no time to look at social issues, the things that we see, but we have no time to look at it. So we are talking about another kind of business, business to solve problems without having any intention of making money. It's a reverse of the conventional business. It's not a mixture of both businesses. The mixture is, as we discussed, if you can put the social and the money making together, you do less of both. So if you concentrate on one, like the social, then you bring the maximum out of the business that you have. That's what the power was that we wanted to get. And that concept had to be taught in school, that there are two kinds of business, business to make money, business to change the world. We all have the creative power to solve the problem, but we are not using that creative power to solve the problem, we are using it to make more money for ourselves. We are bringing technology to make more money for ourselves. If we bring technology to solve the problem, creative technologies will keep coming. All these problems will disappear. You talk about where is the money coming from? Just to give an example, you just passed your legislation about two percent CSR. Imagine the power of that two percent CSR. This is dedicated to charity. I said who don't you use by investing in social business? Imagine how many social businesses are created and all the business people will be creating those social businesses and not a separate group of people. They know how to run business. Once they take the money part out of it, they know how to use it to solve the problem of unemployment, poverty, housing, you name it, healthcare.
NDTV: How do you convince governments? Because of course your troubles with the Bangladesh government were well known after you won your Nobel Prize. We've had Mr Kailash Satyarthi, who was here recently, who was again virtually ostracised by the Indian government till he won his Nobel Prize and I think one thing common in both of you is that he said the same thing. He said that I dreamt that child labour can be eradicated and everyone told me it can't happen, but it will happen. And I think you have the same optimism. How do you deal with governments, how do you deal with bureaucracy, how do you deal with things?
Muhammad Yunus: Well I don't see government as an enemy. Government should be working in the same direction that we all want, that's what the politics is all about. That's what they promise. We help them to deliver. So I don't see if people start doing it, we'll be letting government free. We are not letting government free. We are creating an example, hey this can be done; you are not doing it right. So they will be pushed to doing that. It's not government or people; it's government and people. That has to be remembered. It doesn't mean that just because we create a government and the citizens should be sitting on their hand, I've nothing to do. We have lots to do. We have to create examples. Government cannot create examples, government can only replicate nationwide, statewide that sort of thing. But people can experiment; show the way to do it and that's our capacity, that's our creativity. Government doesn't have creativity. People have creativity. Government has a bureaucracy, they can repeat, they can continue, but we have to come up with ideas and so on. Money should not stand in the way because, as I said, businesses themselves can create. We have joint ventures with large companies. All the Indian companies can create social businesses on the side.
NDTV: In fact I want to bring in Mr Balakrishnan and Mr Bhasin also on that. Mr Balakrishnan, when we say that philanthropy, often seen as the western model, of course there are always critics who would say that this is what they are doing to wipe off the guilt they have over their huge profits, but when you see the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, when you say Warren Buffett saying that we are not leaving our money to our children but we are looking at it to decide how to solve problems, third world problems like malaria and other issues, why is it that Indian billionaires have traditionally been much more wary about philanthropy like this? There are isolated examples but they are not broad scale and how can our politics change to reflect this new thinking and this new model of equality?
V Balakrishnan: I think USA had an old model where people become entrepreneurs, then they become investors and they spend most of the wealth in philanthropic areas. India is slowly catching up. It is a matter of time. There are good examples like Premji Foundation did a lot of things in India, so there are examples but it's not happening in a large scale like the US. I think it's a part of evolution, it will happen soon when most of the entrepreneurs build great businesses, become investors, then they'll become philanthropists, it'll happen when the economy grows over a period of time. On the governments side I think government will be involved because any banking system government cannot ignore, but you should keep the politics out of it. If you look at the issues with un-banked people in the country, mainly it relates to physical access to banks, because banks are not there in almost all the villages. So you have to create proximity. That is where MFI's play a larger role today, where they go door to door and do banking at the doorsteps. Second is a kind of product available in the traditional finance system, which is not suitable for people in the rural sector because they do small ticket items without much collateral and a traditional banking system cannot give access to credit for those people. So I think if the regulations are soft, innovations will happen. If regulators are too rigid, innovations will not happen.
NDTV: Let me get Mr Kamble. Now, when we look at the whole divides that are set up, when we look at an issue like MNREGA, you will have one view which will say this is useless, you can't spend so much money on subsidies, which is seen as anti poor. You will have a view from rural India, which will say abolishing MNREGA is pro-corporate. Even when you look at the Land Bill, is the government pro corporate? is it pro poor? Why is it always that it's the corporates versus rural India or the corporates versus the poor? How do we change that thinking and what do both sides need to do? Perhaps more obviously from the corporate side, what do both sides need to do to bridge that divide?
Milind Kamble: This is a very important issue. Nowadays in the country there is a corporate versus rural divide, how people have created it. Actually the corporates are creating jobs, they are contributing to the GDP, in many ways they are supporting the Indian economy, they are supporting the social strata and all that. So we have to change the thinking, corporate versus rural and all that, this is one thing. Another thing is, Professor Yunus has rightly told that through CSR, now the company has come up with the new Company's Bill and in that Bill two percent of the profit you have to invest on CSR. There are ten points in that. We are also pitching to the government that from this two percent profit, government has to allow investment to the social impact businesses.
Muhammad Yunus: That piece is missing from the list.
Milind Kamble: Yes that point is really missing, Professor Yunus I'll request you please write to the government also, because this will support a lot of people. I will give you one example. I come from Pune. There is Sangli district. 40kms away from Sangli District headquarter there is a village, one member, Mr Devanand Londe, who is running a company in very interior rural India. He has given employment to 250 women. He exports to Japan. So what we are pitching to the government is, that you allow companies to invest in his company, he has exhausted his resources to raise further capital. So to scale up his business, if in this system of two percent lending in CSR, if any company comes and invests in his company, it will scale up and he will give more people employment
NDTV: In fact Mr Bhasin come in on that, because the point summed up by Mr Kamble that after all companies are giving jobs. How do we get out of this rhetoric, of pro corporate, anti poor?
Pramod Bhasin: I really believe its part of the maturing of India because I think there is still a massive amount of distrust. There are a lot of people who saying corporates are only here for money, they are only going to make money. And frankly a large part of that has been true. So if I may, I'll reverse it. I think corporates have done a poor job in creating employment, frankly. In the last five years organised sectors hasn't created more jobs. How can you even survive in a country like India and not have created new jobs? I appreciate there are labour law issues and lots of other issues, if you look at our sector, the IT and BPO sector, we've created a lot of employment, most others haven't. Two, philanthropy which we talked about earlier, we can all do a lot more. By the way the two percent of CSR is a fairly breakthrough event anywhere in the world. Most countries do not have any such law. I remember meeting Sachin Pilot and saying what are you doing, why are you doing this? And I'm a complete convert to it now. I think it's a great idea and it's got everybody thinking about where you can put this money. Will it be misused? A hundred percent by some people but generally people are going to use it and from what I've talked to a lot of companies, we run something called the Skills Academy where we are training people in rural India for jobs. We are working with lots of people and we are trying to get them to not just train people in their local areas, but say train people where the need is the greatest. So that's where CSR has to expand to and I think more and more companies are thinking about it. So I hope that will change the level of mistrust that we have today. It needs to be more visible. I frankly think industry hasn't done enough in this area.
Muhammad Yunus: Let me quickly get into this issue, the unemployment issue; the problem of training and so on and so forth. I think the corporate world will not create enough employment to get everybody jobs and I tell young people from Grameeg Banks and families to forget about the job, that is what the real problem is. You are always thinking; only thinking you could do in your life is to only have a job. I say that is a wrong thinking, this is an obsolete idea, job orientation of people, everybody has to have job. I say human beings basically are entrepreneurs, that what they are born. But somehow theories have taught us that you have to find a job, your education and everything, training is job directed. I tell them you believe that we are not job seekers; we are job creators and behave like job creators, think like a job creator all along and be like a job creator at the end; and then we create a social business front and ask then to come up with business ideas and they come up with business ideas and we invest, we become partners with them and help them to become successful business persona. And all they have to do is to return exactly they money that I gave them because we have social business, we don't want to take any profit out of them. You become entrepreneurs, you keep creating jobs for everybody else, soon hundreds and hundreds of them are coming everyday and we are financing them and so on. There is no reason why we should be waiting for a job, we are creative people, why should some spell put out on us and we don't want to work. That is absolutely wrong thinking. We have to discover that basically human beings are entrepreneurs and the system has to, ecosystem has to be built around them, to make them happen, so that it can be done. Education system should be put in that direction, rather young people say get a good grade and get a good job, say get a good grade and be a good entrepreneur. Create things for yourself. An institution will be standing by to make it happen.
NDTV: In fact, I would like to get Jayshree Vyas for that, Jayshree you were mentioning earlier how you have seen that even the smallest of loans can actually transform lives of a woman, her family, the area around her. Tell us about how you feel the spirit of entrepreneurship is, perhaps what needs to be nurtured the most when we talk about the economic schemes etc, its actually about unleashing this potential as Professor Yunus put it.
Jayshree Vyas: I completely agree with Professor Yunus that you know, we have thousands and thousands of self employed women who were actually working as an individual, but since you know, the kind of small credit for example, input processing business, women who were making gol gappas, you know, those women who were just making gol gappas, but once you provided them with all the facilities like working conditions and also providing credit working capital, then they themselves created jobs for others, particularly first for her husband, then for marketing. And then of course there are more and more people, many of the food processors are now the wholesale workers and now they are providing jobs to many others. And also incense stick makers and I can also give so many such examples. So you know we have to recognise the potential of these people. I agree with Professor Yunus that they are creators and they are entrepreneurs and they are risk takers, because their whole life is full of risk, so they are not afraid of taking any risk, so they are risk takers also. But you have to facilitate them and particularly in the time of crisis in their life you know, if we facilitate them with suitable financial products, I am not saying that with some kind of subsidies or you know, its some kind of dole, but its actually if we create this kind of integrated services it helps them, enables them to grow their businesses. And they are even, you know, using technologies, its not that they are technology averse, even though they are illiterate they are ready to use technology. Also they are ready to improve their working conditions and the style of working. So this is, you know, this is complete there. The second thing I would also like to say is that we are not even looking at the other potentials of, like you know, for example I said that they can save and they are saving so much that you know, if we are facilitating this in the whole country maybe through Jan Dhan Yojna or whatever, then maybe the saving rate of, maybe you know, you might laugh at it, but you know this is true that if you facilitate that maybe the saving rate of the country, which is reducing now, maybe it will grow, it will increase. And the second thing that I will just share is one of our experiences that we realised that there is a need of old age security much before the NPS when you know, was introduced and we linked it with UTI for this. And we had to of course explain to all these women how all this mutual funds work, but once they understood it, they started investing in it and now they are also investing in NPS. So it is, they could be investors, so we are talking about investment, bringing investment, foreign investment and other investment, but if we facilitate them and Monika ji I would you know, maybe take your help, so in this, that you know, they could be micro-investors, they could be micro-savers and they could be job-creators, we totally have that kind of confidence.
NDTV: Exactly move up from Dalal street in Ahmedabad and move it out because the sky is the limit and Monika, because we always talk about the ease of doing business, we always look at what foreign companies think about the ease of doing business in India, but actually perhaps the ease of doing business needs to be relooked at from this level, from rural India, from entrepreneurs, from women who are in their first jobs. How do we resolve this issue, odds of getting them into the capital market, investors, looking at them as assets more than looking at them as people who you have give a dole to?
Monika Halan: So the scale of problems is such that we want to rework to everything. I mean we should rework the education, we need to rework the way business is done and we should rework the way financial products are thought about. They are thought about in Mumbai towers with no relationship with what a person at the end of the chain can do. You have the concept of equated monthly installments, EMI, the person in the village does not have monthly income, please understand that. They will at the time of harvest, they will have a bullet payment coming in, they can not do EMIs, so you need to take the product consideration away from, you know, plush offices of Mumbai and look at it at the point of view of the consumer. And the problem is that financial products are not created for the end user, investor, they are created for the distributor, because the distributor is the interface with the customer. So you have products, which are actually geared to benefit the distributor, so we need to rework on how products are manufactured and sold. And you know, we have very clear views on that. You need to take away the incentives, which encourage people to sell bad products, toxic products to households. So I am saying that we should be very careful before we extend toxic products to the Indian villagers. We have the big ULIP scam, 1.5 trillion rupees was lost by Indian households in that horrible ULIP scam. I am saying that here you have a regulator, you have regulated products and households have lost. Households are still losing because the traditional insurance plan is losing households even more money. So we need to rethink who is making money and what the household is actually losing. So we need to be very, very careful before we, you know, before we push this toxic product down to the villages, I would be very, very careful before we allow that to happen.
NDTV: The final round of Dialogues tonight. Professor Yunus you just now touched the issue of inequality and how we have seen the gap is actually widening instead of decreasing, which you would have hoped with the growth and reforms across the world. With movements like Occupy Wall Street etc how do you view the current context, which is being discussed in South Asia and India, especially this whole battle between the subsidies? Some would call it, I mean the critics would call it dole, but how do you balance the country, a subcontinent with people with so many different needs? And Bangladesh, it may be less of a divide, but I think you will have the same problems emerging. And in different countries of South Asia, how do you balance different needs to make sure that a large chunk is not left behind?
Muhammad Yunus: Well first of all, the whole system, the way we created will continue to exuberate the whole thing, the widening equality.
NDTV: So, you are saying demolish it, don't tinker with it?
Muhammad Yunus: Demolishes one, but you have to come up with a replacement. What I am saying that one is to audition what we have. We have a money-centric world today, a selfish world; all we want is for ourselves. We have no time for others. This is a misinterpretation of human beings. Human beings are not all about selfishness, but the system has pushed us into that position. So we became moneymaking robots, so why we don't discover us as human beings and interpret human beings in the economic theory, as having selfishness and having selflessness? We know the business on the selfish part, we have experts on that, now we want the selfless businesses, that is what the special businesses are, solve problems. Everybody can solve problems. If you can solve a tiny piece of a problem you discover something, which could solve the huge giant of a problem. So why don't we do that?
NDTV: I just want to ask, but the concept of course in Bangladesh we can see tragedy last year when you had the horrific fire, when manufacturing garments for western countries. How did you do that concept, were you found because of cheaper labour prices, which is seen as an incentive for western countries to come here and work in the countries like Bangladesh, India, China and the disregard for workers human rights? How is that one model you see a bit...
Muhammad Yunus: It is the product of the system that we have. You are only giving another example of it because you have to squeeze the cost of production so that you can make more money. It takes around ten dollars to produce a shirt, for example, in Bangladesh including the cost of the cotton and the yarn and the making and cutting, everything altogether, In 10 dollars we deliver you at the New York Airport or port whatever and then you put it in the store and it becomes a 50 dollar shirt. So who got the money? The people who worked behind on it, they altogether get only 10 dollars. So if you can add one more dollar all the problems will not happen and they will have decent salaries, they will have decent wages. Today the wages they get are even below the abject poverty level of $1.25. So what is the use of working if you remain at abject poverty? Your salary is still there and then you sell this for beautiful fashion, then what is the fashion about if people have to slave for you? So we need to address these issues that we have to make an announcement for every single business, that this is the core commitment of every single business. We shall do no harm to people, we shall do no harm to the planet and we shall not do any exploitation. If these are followed, this is just kind of weaving the framework, I am not saying go outside the framework. Within the framework you have to see what a business means. You have to make sure business doesn't mean exploit people, ruin people.
NDTV: And that could really be transformation by just three guiding principles. Monika you want to say something and then last words from everyone.
Monika Halan: I think what I hear Professor Yunus saying is, I think, we need rethink how we view ourselves as human beings. We have been taught that our entire education system is built on experiments that show that rodents chase cheese; but when you do surveys across companies about what it is that motivates people when they go to work, its not money, money comes at number three. First is what is it that you are doing? Are you doing anything good? The self worth that you get out from work is number one, your boss comes at number two and the money comes third. But the way we have designed our system, our schools, our offices, is that incentive. I think we need to rethink and that's a very, very important point that he is making. There is a need to rethink ourselves as human beings, who are we, are we only chasing that cheese? We are not, but we are brainwashed in to believing we are.
NDTV: Mr Kamble final words from you. One thing, which of course the economic revolutions did in 1991, is that it raised caste in many degrees, where you have found that if you had merit, if you have a good idea, if you get money to back it. You would be able to establish yourself. So in that sense reforms did bring that the new dividing line was, perhaps, class of wealth, as opposed to earlier a dividing line which was caste.
Milind Kamble: Yes. After new economic reforms, the caste system in India is breaking. I will give you an example. I frequently visit the countryside and I travel a lot in India. If you visit any Dalit hamlet in the country, you will find in the 5 to 10 years there are one or two grocery shops have come up and what they are selling in the grocery shop? They are selling shampoos, small shampoos, pouches, Fair & Lovely, Kurkure and all these things. And all these things are not related to stomach, these things are related to tongue, means the people have solved their problem of stomach. So this thing is happening in the countryside, the economy is well growing which is reaching to the poorer and all that. These are our real findings. We have a one vertical research system and all that this is one thing and the caste system is breaking. Other things in this budget, I congratulate Mr Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, who has created one chapter, funding to unfunded which is the core thing.
NDTV: And the MUDRA Bank which has been announced.
Milind Kamble: Yes and the MUDRA Bank is announced with a share capital of 20,000 crores. Now what is a MUDRA Bank? This is the Micro Unit Development Refinance Agency. This is a very good initiative in the country by this government, to support the unfunded people. What Mrs Vyas is also mentioning, this is a very good initiative and the whole crux of this budget is the focus on micro economies.
NDTV: Which has been perhaps neglected. Mr Bhasin, final thoughts tonight
Pramod Bhasin: I think the piece of dialogue that I was listening is that adding a social dimension to what the companies needs to do, I think is a very good idea and we must push that. Which means you will not exploit people, you will not erode the planet and you will pay minimum wages etc. The issue however, I don't believe however that jobs are not important. Jobs are incredibly important. It's not going to work just from entrepreneurship. Second let us also remember that, the industry has done a lot. I am just defending it because in our industry, for instance, it has transformed cities, lives of millions of people. So I just think we should not ignore it. I think there is a dimension to it, but we must do it responsibly and we must do it with due care which I think often doesn't happen. In India the big danger by the way we have, is that our demographics are producing nearly one million more people in to the workforce every year, every month. So the opportunity for the industry to exploit, tease people is increasing, not decreasing, because these people won't become entrepreneurs overnight. They will need earnings, they will need a living and therefore what we call the unorganised sector by the way is not unorganized. It is serving the organised sector but it is not defined in itself, right. This kind of definition to me is immoral almost. How can you live like that and how can you run industries, which allow that to happen? So I think bringing that dialogue is very important. Last one I would say is technology and the use of technology to do payment banks. I have worked with the IFMR and they are doing some very interesting work in finding ways to lend to people who have no written statements or hard statements of earning and capacity. We have found some dimensions to do that, expanding that to people who are currently unbanked. Doing it the way SEWA has done, doing it the way Professor Yunus has done. I think both have to happen simultaneously. I really think we have to resist the temptation of saying either or
NDTV: I think that sums up the spirit of this Dialogue. So I would like to thank you all very much, Mr Balakrishnan, Mrs Jayshree Vyas, Mr Bhasin, Mrs Monika Halan, Mr Kamble and of course Professor Yunus for being on the show. Thank you very much.