Ten youths paying Tk50 a month built a cooperative with about Tk50 crore in capital

During the 1998 flood, a young man from Faridganj, Chandpur, who had just passed his higher secondary and could not find work in Dhaka, formed a samity with 10 educated young men from the area. Members each deposited Tk 50 a month. Within two months there were 100 members. After a year the fund held Tk 60,000, and with that money lending began — for example, a loan to a man who drove a rented rickshaw so he could buy a rickshaw, with a year to repay. On 17 June 2001 the samity was registered as a multipurpose cooperative society. In 2002 it took an office at Chandra Bazar and hired six staff; members bought transport, computers, photocopiers and sewing machines in instalments from the samity's capital. When ordinary people began to deposit money, capital reached Tk 17 lakh in 2003. In 2005 seven branches were opened and 42 staff hired. In a 2015 piece he said capital was about Tk 50 crore, the monthly income and expenditure and profit-and-loss accounts are sent to the district and upazila cooperative offices, and every branch and project is strictly supervised. In his words, “I did not set out to form the samity with the idea that I would become something or achieve something overnight.”