Geetanjali Krishna: Spreading entrepreneurship

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Often at Dilli Haat and other fairs, I've been struck by the contrast between products sold by NGOs and those sold by commercial producers. It would be unfair to say that NGOs altogether too often get away with selling inferior products just because they're made by under-privileged groups. It would be equally unfair to say that commercial producers are altogether too often driven by market considerations to experiment with newer or better quality products. To me, the contrast lies in their attitudes. Unlike many commercial producers, NGOs often seem to lack entrepreneurial spirit and often seem sniffy about earning money.The other day, I said as much to Anirban Gupta, one of the founders of Delhi-based Dhriiti. "Everyone has skills that entrepreneurs need "" risk taking, teamwork etc," said he, adding diplomatically, "but only some use them effectively." He should know, for Dhriiti trains young adults, both urban and rural, NGOs as well as mainstream, to be entrepreneurs. The group also works with grass-root-level organisations to set up sustainable business enterprises.

Gupta is especially gung-ho about spreading this spirit of enterprise in India's villages. "We plan on giving technical support, training, help with bank loans and marketing support to village entrepreneurs," he said, adding, "for there's no dearth of business opportunities for youth who want to chase their dreams." Dhriiti has some interesting small business ideas for villagers in the north east, of which one, producing disposable plates from areca-nut leaves has already taken off in seventeen places. "We adapted machinery for these units to suit the high moisture weather conditions there. Also, existing machines ran on electricity, which many villages didn't have. So we modified ours to run on LPG as well," he said. He and colleagues at Dhriiti estimate that in the coming year they'll have about a hundred such units running.

Another business plan they're working on, is getting the north eastern villagers to weave bamboo mats. "These have great scope as at least three companies are making bamboo composite boards (boards made of compressed bamboo mats, pretty much like compressed wooden boards) there," he said . The raw material is cheap and plentiful, and weaving such mats requires skills which village entrepreneurs already possess. "Which is why," said this Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar alumnus, "we're hopeful this project will take off pretty soon." Similarly, when the Dhriiti team discovered the fantastic weaves of the North East, many of which people in metros have rarely seen, they devised an interesting marketing plan. "We're hoping to go the Amway and Tupperware route and get ladies to market these textiles from home," said he.

The whole idea, clearly, is for people to make money doing what they can easily do, whether they live in villages or are privileged city youngsters. "You talk of NGOs being snobbish about commercialising their products "" even urban parents have similar attitudes. Talk to them about training teenagers to convert ideas into viable commercial projects, they say it's too early for their babies to think about money" he said.

But it's never too early to start, folks in Dhriiti believe. They have chapters in some Delhi colleges, where students are given some training and encouraged to implement a business plan in four months. "Out of our first batch of fifty, fourteen are successful entrepreneurs today," said he.

They're a young organisation (barely three years old). So it'll take time for them to expand their repertory of business plans and for their band of entrepreneurs to show us what they can do. Even so, full marks to Dhriiti for a topper of an idea.