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Authors: Hindol Sengupta
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where the bureaucracy and politics stifle things, but I think there is an overall sense that we must get things done in spite of all the problems.
âAt least the guns are silent now.â
B UT EVEN WHEN THE GUNS WERE BLAZING, ONE K ASHMIRI BANK KEPT the spirit of enterprise alive. In a sense the story of J&K Bank and its success is the story of how enterprise has been at the forefront of keeping hopes of peace alive in the valley.
Hear the tale of Ahjaz Ahmad, for instance. With the nonstop rattle of AK-47 gunfire and grenades going off right outside the door of his office at the Tourist Reception Centre in downtown Srinagar, Ahmad got a call from his boss, who told him to get out. The 45-year-old branch manager of J&K Bank refused. In the moment when he knew he might die, Ahjaz Ahmad couldnât help for a moment thinking of the files.
It was April 6, 2005, one day before the start of a major peace initiative between nuclear-armed rivals and neighbors India and Pakistan. For the first time the two countries had agreed to start a bus service across the Line of Control, which divides the Kashmir Valley from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and splits the northern borders of India and Pakistan. The neighbors have fought three wars over Kashmir.
A bus service would be a great step forward.
But around 4:00 p.m. the day before, when Ahmad heard the first gunshots, he knew that militants opposed to the peace initiative had struck. But he wouldnât leave. âThe office was full of financial records. We couldnât have let it burn. These were records of us, people like me, the ordinary Kashmiri, our neighbors and friends.â
So Ahmad and four other staff members remained inside the office as gunfire and bombing continued outside for one and a half hours, even after everyone from ten other offices in the building fled, even after the building was set on fire.
By the time they escaped their ground floor office with black plastic bags full of files and a drive full of data, after the firing stopped and the terrorists had been killed, most of the building was charred, and all ten other offices were either destroyed or nearly so. More than ten people were injured in the fire.
Eight years later, Ahmad says, âI was very scared, but at that time we were not so (technologically) centralized like today; if branch records were destroyed, rebuilding them would take a lot of time. My clients were not unknown people. They were my neighbors, people I knew, my father knew, his father knewâhow could I let them down?â
Companies like to tell stories of being integrated in their communities. It makes them feel good about earning profits, and it doesnât look too bad in the annual report either. But few companies are actually part of the rubric of the societies they serve.
Ask anyone in Kashmirâfrom the elderly houseboat manager to the award-winning walnut-wood carver to the dynamic hydroelectric plant managerâand everyone will tell you that Kashmiris feel that they have a personal stake in the bank. And not just because the state of Jammu and Kashmir is a majority (53 percent) shareholder in the bank, making it the only bank owned by a state in India. All the other public banks are owned by the central government.
At a time when Indiaâs banking industry is in deep crisis and the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of 40 listed banks went up by 43 percent in one year, J&K Bank had one of the lowest NPAs in Indian banking. Gross NPA for the end of March 2013 was 1.62 percent. Net NPA was only 0.14 percent, far lower than most of its industry peers that are roughly the same size, such as Allahabad Bank (3.19 percent), UCO Bank (3.17 percent), Punjab National Bank (2.35 percent), Indian Bank (2.26 percent) and Canara Bank (2.18 percent). Indiaâs largest banks, ICICI, Axis and State Bank India, also have higher net impaired loans of 0.77 percent, 0.32 percent and 2.10 percent. One of the reasons
âAt least the guns are silent now.â
B UT EVEN WHEN THE GUNS WERE BLAZING, ONE K ASHMIRI BANK KEPT the spirit of enterprise alive. In a sense the story of J&K Bank and its success is the story of how enterprise has been at the forefront of keeping hopes of peace alive in the valley.
Hear the tale of Ahjaz Ahmad, for instance. With the nonstop rattle of AK-47 gunfire and grenades going off right outside the door of his office at the Tourist Reception Centre in downtown Srinagar, Ahmad got a call from his boss, who told him to get out. The 45-year-old branch manager of J&K Bank refused. In the moment when he knew he might die, Ahjaz Ahmad couldnât help for a moment thinking of the files.
It was April 6, 2005, one day before the start of a major peace initiative between nuclear-armed rivals and neighbors India and Pakistan. For the first time the two countries had agreed to start a bus service across the Line of Control, which divides the Kashmir Valley from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and splits the northern borders of India and Pakistan. The neighbors have fought three wars over Kashmir.
A bus service would be a great step forward.
But around 4:00 p.m. the day before, when Ahmad heard the first gunshots, he knew that militants opposed to the peace initiative had struck. But he wouldnât leave. âThe office was full of financial records. We couldnât have let it burn. These were records of us, people like me, the ordinary Kashmiri, our neighbors and friends.â
So Ahmad and four other staff members remained inside the office as gunfire and bombing continued outside for one and a half hours, even after everyone from ten other offices in the building fled, even after the building was set on fire.
By the time they escaped their ground floor office with black plastic bags full of files and a drive full of data, after the firing stopped and the terrorists had been killed, most of the building was charred, and all ten other offices were either destroyed or nearly so. More than ten people were injured in the fire.
Eight years later, Ahmad says, âI was very scared, but at that time we were not so (technologically) centralized like today; if branch records were destroyed, rebuilding them would take a lot of time. My clients were not unknown people. They were my neighbors, people I knew, my father knew, his father knewâhow could I let them down?â
Companies like to tell stories of being integrated in their communities. It makes them feel good about earning profits, and it doesnât look too bad in the annual report either. But few companies are actually part of the rubric of the societies they serve.
Ask anyone in Kashmirâfrom the elderly houseboat manager to the award-winning walnut-wood carver to the dynamic hydroelectric plant managerâand everyone will tell you that Kashmiris feel that they have a personal stake in the bank. And not just because the state of Jammu and Kashmir is a majority (53 percent) shareholder in the bank, making it the only bank owned by a state in India. All the other public banks are owned by the central government.
At a time when Indiaâs banking industry is in deep crisis and the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of 40 listed banks went up by 43 percent in one year, J&K Bank had one of the lowest NPAs in Indian banking. Gross NPA for the end of March 2013 was 1.62 percent. Net NPA was only 0.14 percent, far lower than most of its industry peers that are roughly the same size, such as Allahabad Bank (3.19 percent), UCO Bank (3.17 percent), Punjab National Bank (2.35 percent), Indian Bank (2.26 percent) and Canara Bank (2.18 percent). Indiaâs largest banks, ICICI, Axis and State Bank India, also have higher net impaired loans of 0.77 percent, 0.32 percent and 2.10 percent. One of the reasons
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