An inspiring journey of purpose & dedication
Ihave the privilege to review the book `Roots to Fruits – The Journey of a Development Banker’. This is the autobiography of Dr B Yerram Raju.
First and foremost, this is a very comprehensive book, covering a wide range of topics that the author has experience and learnt. The topics are neatly divided into meaningful sections, so that the book need not be read sequentially.
The book is filled with examples of how India worked and how India works, which will be an eye opener for many youngsters entering the world of banking. Examples include fraud in milk collection, sheep financing, accounting fiction, and more indicate myriad challenges that bankers will face in development financing. On the positive side, bankers can help customers market their goods, of which the author gives an example of how he helped idol makers get orders from Paris and London.
One of the amazing things about Dr Raju is that at the age of 75 he started an organization to facilitate the revival of troubled SME. Telangana Industrial Health Clinic Ltd – TIHCL. It was founded based on his observation that “when an SME fails, the solution lies in not putting an accusing finger against either the entrepreneur or the lender, but bringing them together to understand each other and extend support to the entrepreneur with equity and margin money, as a comfort to both.”
He highlights 5 principles that helped its formation and running – Creative insight, Sensitivity, Vision, Focus and Patience. “Development Banking can be a long journey, not a destination,” claims Dr Raju.
The author has a dedicated chapter on banking reforms. He traces the history of reforms, particularly post-liberalization in 1991. The initial reforms sought to improve bank profitability by reducing CRR and SLR and enhancing capital adequacy. Also competition was encouraged through entry of foreign and private banks. This was followed with internal reforms in credit scoring, technology use, etc. One of his key recommendations is lesser government interference in loan sanctioning and improving governance in public sector banks.
Dr Raju outright expresses his obsession with the MSME sector. The decade of liberalization and deregulation of banking and the surge of reforms made only a negative contribution to the growth of SMEs, claims Dr Raju. The perceived higher risk is the key factor for this for which Dr Raju recommends improving the internal rating capabilities.
Towards the end, the book has chapters on Financial Inclusion, Risk Management, Corporate Governance and even the impact of Covid-19.
This autobiography is indeed inspirational as it shows an alternate model - that achievement is not only about one big audacious goal, but also about creating impact in a thousand different ways, so that the cumulative impact is note worthy.