Govind Chandra Dash is a man of vision for pioneering professional financial services across the length and breadth of Odisha. He is the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the G.U.Financial Services Pvt. Ltd (GUFSPL) has led the company into becoming a regional class financial services company, serving the financial needs of several individuals in the state proficiently. Under his leadership, the Company commenced its transformational journey, reaching out to 1,00,000 customers in Odisha & Chhattisgarh. He has spearheaded the acquisition of housing finance, WASH, Finance, Farm, and Off-farm based activities. He also strives to reach out to the larger lower-income households through his hard-core efforts.

Apart from holding such an important position at G.U.Financial Services, Dash is also known for his social work. He and a few like-minded people founded the NGO named, Gram Utthan in 1990 and since then, he has been leading the organization from the front. Under his competent leadership and Management, the organization has achieved several milestones. It has created a niche position for itself in the NGO sector by continuously empowering the downtrodden and underprivileged people of Odisha & Chhattisgarh.

Dash’s sincere efforts and attitude for relentlessly working to promote livelihood, Improved WASH, Skill development, disaster risk reduction(DRR), Community health, Micro- Housing, Women & child development covering 3,00,000 low-income families have been appreciated by many eminent personalities.

When asked about his vision for Gram-Utthan Finance in upcoming years, he says, “In my opinion, it is imperative being the head of this institution to march on the activities incommensurate with the organization’s vision and manage a team in such a manner that will help accomplish the same. Furthermore, being a development professional and founder of this organization, I always endeavor to focus on the holistic development of the community through designing and delivering a varied range of products and services as per the needs of women members.” He further said, “Presently G.U. Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. serves around 1.5 lakh members in 17 districts of Odisha & Chattisgarh through its 42 branches. We expect that we will be able to expand our current operation in uncovered areas and 5 more states thereby serving 5 lakh members by 2025. Although we have adopted advanced technology-based Micro Finance activities, we expect to transform into a digitally-enabled, fully techno-based company at the next level.”

Dash is quite confident regarding Odisha’s growth in Microfinance in the upcoming years. “It is my pleasure that I have obtained this opportunity to share my heartfelt experiences and thoughts about this very unbeaten and flawless activity undertaken by the women community of the populace for improvement of their economic conditions, social recognitions and becoming a source of inspiration for others through association with the Micro Finance Institutions working in Odisha,” he mentioned.

Speaking about the future of the microfinance sector in the state, he says, “The Micro Finance sector in Odisha has already achieved remarkable and outstanding growth amongst other Indian states. The last quarter of the current financial year has reflected a comparatively growing trend in the previous year. Further, I am pretty sure that the Microfinance Sector will play the role of a catalyst for economic development at the micro-level and macro-level.”

When asked about his feeling to receive an award from the Interview Times for the best microfinance organization in 2022, Dash replied, “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Interview Times for recognizing our efforts. Being a thorough professional, this award will certainly inspire me and my team to work hard to improve the community we work in and create more opportunities for our future endeavors. All the stakeholders will come forward and engage themselves to improve the quality of services for the needy community.”

Feature By- Saayak Karmakar, Resident Editor, Interview Times

Image Source- Google