'Jain Bank' on the cards

Institution to financially aid budding entrepreneurs within the community

Predominantly a business community, Jains across India are working out a funding initiative to keep the entrepreneurship spirit alive among its people. They plan to set up a "Jain Bank", or a co-operative society, with a corpus of at least Rs 100 crore to disburse financial aid to those within the community looking to establish a business venture or scale up existing ones.

"Today, about 15 per cent of the Jain community is employed. While some of it is because they found lucrative career opportunities, others are because they did not succeed well in a business or did not have the financial ability to do so," says Narendrakumar Baldota, chairman of the Jain International Trade Organisation and chairman and managing director of iron-ore mining company MSPL Ltd.

Baldota says the organisation is looking for ways to organise finance from within the community for budding entrepreneurs with an idea or those looking to expand their small and medium businesses.

"We want to find means to organise finance for them. We are thinking of opening, perhaps, a Jain Bank," says Baldota. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandates a minimum corpus of Rs 100 crore to set up a bank but Baldota says arranging funds is not a cause of concern.

"We will be able to identify the people and bring the money from those who can afford. They can become shareholders by contributing to set up the bank," he says. "It is not a problem to get the money, we need to work towards the involvement of the community in such initiatives."

Earlier this year, the Jain community was granted the minority status, along with Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis.

Most of the other communities have co-operative societies of their own, but the Jains do not have a large all-India body of the kind yet.

Baldota estimates about 70 per cent of Jains are traders, while 10 per cent are industrialists with small-and-medium businesses and in need of economic empowerment.

Strict ethics followed by the Jains with regard to ahimsa (non-violence) towards all living creatures prevents them from entering several businesses, Baldota said. "Only about five per cent of the total Jain community are industrialists with large-scale businesses. This number needs to go up."