The social business model will bring about a qualitative change for the better across the world, not just for Third World countries, according to Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. The model should not be viewed as a utopian notion, said Yunus, who founded Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, and bagged the Nobel peace prize in 2006.

He was here on Thursday on a visit to Andhra University, and delivered a lecture at a seminar on ‘Social business for sustainable development’. Andhra University is planning a social business centre named after him. Earlier in the week, he was in Tirupati to participate in the Indian Science Congress convention.

Yunus explained to the audience, largely consisting of university students and professors, how he had developed Grameen Bank step by step, with assistance from “the so-called illiterate poor masses, especially women, in Bangladesh’s villages”. The model is aimed at zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero pollution, he said.

Andhra Pradesh has pioneered the microfinance model in India, he observed, adding: “I know there have been some problems here. But the idea is basically sound, though there may be a few who may misuse it.”

Yunus expressed regret that in most countries including India, a large number of people are left out of the financial system in general and banking system in particular.

“We have to find ways to bring them into the system and the system should also be redesigned to suit their needs. Conventional systems will not work,” he observed.

Exhorting youngsters to turn entrepreneurs rather than job-seekers, Yunus said India and Bangladesh can make use of the demographic dividend only if the spirit of entrepreneurship is inculcated in the youth.

sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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