Social business is a no-loss, non-dividend company: Prof Yunus

Mumbai, Feb 2 (UNI) Nobel laureate Prof Yunus Mohammed, who is the brain behind the Grameen Bank movement of Bangladesh, explained the concept of 'social business', which is purely based on the no-loss, non-dividend theory.

Prof Yunus, who is the winner of Nobel Peace Prize for Peace in the year 2006, was delivering a lecture on 'Social Business entrepreneurs are the solution' here at a function jointly held by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and British Business Group.

''There are two types of business, profit-making business and social business. While one thinks only how to increase profit while doing profit-making business, social business works for the amelioration of the lower strata of society comprising beggars and the handicapped. In fact, capitalisation which talks of profit making is just a half told story and it is the segment of social business which can make it full,'' he claimed.

He has been a strong vocal critic of the style of functioning adopted by Government banks.

''The government's money spent in the name of social business simply does'nt work well as the government is a slow working machine". Similarly conventional banks, that cover merely one-third of world's population, normally look for only those people who are already having sufficient money in their pockets and hence their failure towards achieving real goals, he added.

Therefore to avoid all such kinds of maladies, we at Grameen Bank, which has got its branches in 23 countries now catering to the needs of 70 lakh people, have prepared a check-list to ensure that lower runk of society living in the remote areas are essentially involved in the movement, he said. Our job doesn't end here, he said, as we have picked up the children of poor folks with a promise to provide them a completely different set of life. Moreover, our all the staffs are asked to work as a family members of our customers, he stressed as the idea is to run the Grameen Bank model as a family enterprise, he said.

Hailing the role of micro-finance, he said that self-employment is the best way to fight the menace of unemployment.

Prof Yunus beautifully explained how the Grameen Bank model has helped the women folk of Bangla Desh shift their traditional base of paddy cultivation and cow rearing to seek different areas to earn their living. "Initially women were hesitant to join our movement and it took us six years from the beginning of Grameen Bank movement to win their confidence," said he.

UNI