Dear Friends,
Greetings from Bihar Development Trust!
We have completed nine months of existence as organisation. It has received tremendous support from all of you since our inception as BIHAR DEVELOPMENT TRUST on March 26, 2007.
It has been a very interesting journey full of challenges like walking on glass edge. Our agenda is to build a most transparent organisation in the world where nothing is hidden. In doing this, I need constant criticisms, suggestions for improving our transparency level. Governance is very important aspect of it. We would like few of you who can and have inclination to take active role in BDT act as a catalyst of growth of BDT. It will mean visiting our operations, suggestions for improvement, raising finances and spreading the words of our work to the outer world to more people in your network in individual capacity. We want to build a world class institution which people should look up to. I am dreaming big but only after dreaming, you can wake up and execute your dreams. As Sony Akio Morita said ‘flawless execution is the key”. In our quest to build a world best organisation which improves the quality of life (health, education, financial condition) of millions of people who dream of living life with dignity and respect, we need support from all of you. We need support as idea level and execution level. We are on right track and need to go on till we achieve our goal.
I have put the goal on our website wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
ww.bihardev.pbwiki.com.
We do have abstract goal of achieving dignity and respect. But to put on paper, I have dreamt of building a US$20 billion (may be euro as $ is going down) enterprise in Bihar by 2020. The areas of opportunities are very common ideas like microfinance, handloom and handicrafts, fruits and vegetable, Agricultural commodities, health care and education, power and rural BPO and tourism etc as we have no innovative ideas. We believe in executing those things in Bihar which many big companies finds unable to do it.
Management people who have read the JIM COLLINS ‘BUILT TO LAST’’ may classify as BHAG ie big hairy audacious goal. Yes, we are dreaming big. The 20 billion dollar wealth will be created in partnership of 5 million people being associated with us. We hope to add 5 million people with us by year 2020 as producers/users of our service at Bihar. For that we may have to float different forms or organizations like producer companies, cooperatives, trust, societies, private ltd companies, NBFC, Banks or many more economic and legal entities which are best suitable to take the advantage of globalization as well as localization and most cost efficient.
The idea is to adapt GRAMEEN and AMUL model to Bihar context supported by most efficient technologies.
So to reach the 20 billion dollar/euro goal by 2020 in Bihar, I need support of all of you. For some of you, it may seem figment of imagination by a young people and young organisation which have not yet crossed one year of survival. To be frank, we don’t know how we achieve this ‘LAKSHYA’ or goal but we will achieve it. There are many skeptical of achieving this goal, given the crime ridden scenario that the people not living in Bihar feel more. Crime has been there and will always be there as it is in Mumbai, Delhi or NewYork. But, it has not stopped the people making billions in those cities. So I feel few of the next new generation billionaire will come from Bihar along with other states.
Many people feel that talking so audaciously and big, we may invite the fate of Sanjay Ghosh or Manjunath or Sateyendra Dubey . How to avoid that fate is a challenge that we may face when we grow big. This question has no answers but we feel that we are not fighting against anyone. The solution may be creating a win-win scenario in which every stakeholder’s benefits. We will work it out when the situation will arrive.
What is our self interest in doing this? Obviously we will also be making our billions. Only different thing is that it will benefit more than 5 million people or may be more and they will have more money in their pockets if we surpass our dreams.
Over last one year during my extensive travels, many people have wished me luck as well as not advised to get trapped in Bihar.
But the feeling or adrenalin rush that you feel while talking to the community, explaining our loan products or training our staff members or explaining people why you should join us beats everything that may give pleasure or anything else that money can buy. And master card is for those things. These are one of the things that MasterCard will not buy. I need people with MasterCard to support us and join us in the field to derive that pleasure. One more business opportunities that may be development tourism that is give a chance to MasterCard holder to work like a social worker or activist for a day in exchange of dollars/Euros.
So, why the mails was written to all of you? We have a work to do that is very important for the India and the whole world. I send 3000 mails per week and It will go on increasing as I met new people and gather new mail ids.
The mail has been written to all of you to help me in making Bihar Development Trust as a world class organisation. For which I need people who shares the similar ownership feelings towards Bihar Development Trust and believe in the dreams as articulated by it. I would like their help in improving governance, transparency and accountability to all stakeholders. The good practice of running an organisation so that it outlasts the longest running organisation of this millennium needs to be instituted right now. We are raw and we have still not learned the art of hiding as we have nothing to hide right now. But we feel that we need to be alert and vigilant right now so that we are not quagmire by the corruption that prevails in every big organisation. We want to account for every amount we get and pay and make billions in a transparent manner. So that you all can say that we achieved 20 billion dollar dream and you know how we achieved it.
Can anyone among the thousands who have read till this end will come forward to achieve that?
Regards
Ravi Chandra
