Jignesh Shah is the perfect example of people who march on towards their goal without paying attention to the envious.Consider the awards – ‘US – India Businessman of the year 2005-06’ and ‘Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006’ presented to him. His journey to the top of the financial markets is no less than a prophecy fulfilled. At the young age of 8, he had decided to overhaul the financial markets and do what no one had done before. While half of his attention has accomplished that, the rest has been dedicated to the benefit of the society.
‘The other person was Jignesh Shah, currently Chairman Emeritus of FTIL, whose two vibrant companies, MCX and NSEL, were the finest platforms for trading in agricultural commodities with an ultimate aim to benefit the farmer. Shah had worked on the thoughts of the then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, who wanted a single market for both manufactured and agricultural produce.’
The preceding is an excerpt from the book ‘The Target’. In India, Jignesh Shah is widely considered as the pioneer of financial, trading, enterprise solutions among many others. Shah worked for Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) after completing bachelors in Electronics and Telecommunications. Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) is one of the 18 innovations to come out of his company. Having contributed 2000 crores of taxes to the government in the past decade, 63 moons technologies, previously Financial Technologies India Limited (FTIL), has created around 10 lakh direct and indirect jobs. His company has given India its first online commodity exchange portal. He is also one of the first flag bearers of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ initiatives.
Like most revered men in recorded history, his account isn’t without a few groundless allegations and conspiracies. However, Shah doesn’t pay much heed to them and continues his hard work. ‘The Target’ written by Shanatnu Guha Ray is a fine journal of events that spilt ink on his long and prosperous career without much avail. The following excerpt puts the point in perspective.
‘In paragraph 21, Justice Thipsay observed, “It is a fact that as of today, there is no material to show any direct link between the amounts dishonestly earned by the borrowers and the amounts received by the applicant. Sufficient time has already been given to the investigating agency and in spite of this, no link or connection between the proceeds of crime and the applicant, has been revealed so far.”
It is absolutely clear from Justice Thipsay’s annotations that the real culprits behind the NSEL crisis were defaulters, brokers and investors. But even after almost two years, not much has been done by the authorities to go after the true criminals, but have been hounding Shah and select directors of the then NSEL, and FTIL by resorting to successive wrongful actions taken by the then FMC and the former DEA in the then MoF, at the behest of the three conspirators, who were working hand in glove during the UPA-2 regime. All this was done with the sole objective to crush the visionary, Jignesh Shah, and FTIL to stop them from developing new enterprises by creating new innovations to fulfill PM Narendra Modi’s dream of Make in India.’
Jignesh Shah broke his long kept silence and addressed the media only recently after 3-4 years, when his family had been looped in the conspiracy. It shows his strong character and that he doesn’t react to baseless allegations. He is the doer!