all credits: The officials at work at Bachcha Bank in Patna. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, May 31: Navin Kumar may come across as an unusual candidate to manage a bank. But make no mistake — at 16 he is already a bank manager.

The Class X student of Ram Mohan Roy Seminary School is the manager of Bachcha Bank. With him are two assistant managers — 15-year-old, Neha Kumari and Rohit Kumar of the same age.

Set up in November 2009, the bank is an initiative of Kilkari Bal Bhavan, an unit of the state human resource development (HRD) department. Till April this year, the bank has 661 clients — all nine-year-old to 14-year-old students associated with Kilkari.

All of these 661 clients have their own passbooks that mention their name, address and account number.

What draws these young clients to the banks? Navin said: “The minimum amount to open an account here is Re 1. A child who has only Re 1 in his pocket can therefore come here to open an account.”

And keeping their money in the bank has also proved to be beneficial to many clients, most of whom are slum children.

Fifteen-year-old Ravi Kumar said: “My mother had to undergo an operation and my father had spent a big amount on her treatment by then. My brother and my savings came to our rescue. We jointly withdrew Rs 5,000 from our accounts.”

Another client, Manish Kumar, a student of Rose Public High School, said: “I realised the benefit of my savings when I badly needed a pair of badminton shoes. Not only did I buy a pair from my savings, I also bought some books later.”

The bank is not only a boon to its young clients. It has also helped build the young bank manager’s confidence. Navin said: “At the age of 14, I was already a bank manager. This will be a big achievement in my life. A person can dream of a career once his/her studies are over. But even after pursuing higher education many don’t get a good job in time. I was lucky that before finishing my studies, I am getting to learn so many things at my job.”

Navin is paid Rs 500 a month while Neha and Rohit are paid Rs 300. Describing their responsibilities, Navin said: “At present, there are three employees, including me — I am the bank manager and Neha and Rohit are assistant bank managers. Three of us work in full co-operation. Opening and closing an account, helping our clients withdraw money from their account and maintaining necessary details about our clients fall under our domain. The three of us also meet Kilkari director Jyoti Parihar once a month to discuss our agendas and put forward suggestions. We also invite suggestions from our clients.”

Neha is also happy for being part of the venture. “Age and qualification may be a restraining factor for a child to get a job. But that is not the case with me today,” she said, adding that the work culture at Bachcha Bank is similar to any other bank. “We are very disciplined and try to enter the office at the scheduled time once our classes are over in school.”

On the idea behind opening the bank, Kilkari director Jyoti Parihar said: “The basic idea was to make the children realise the value of savings. Be it a minimum amount of Re 1 or Rs 10, if a saving nature is instilled in a child, it will not only help him but he can also be a source of support for his parents. My motive is not to set up a parallel system of banks but only allow children to have insight and a sense of planning when it comes to money.”

She added the bank provides six per cent interest to its customers. Clients who save more than Rs 200 a year are also given encouragement money of Rs 50. Till the end of April, Bachcha Bank had savings of around Rs 3.82 lakh. HRD minister P.K. Shahi also added Rs 25,000 to the bank’s fund this March.

Bachcha Bank remains open from 2pm to 4pm between Tuesday and Friday. While it is closed on Monday, Saturday and Sunday are full days when the bank is open from 9am to 4pm.