‘Huge opportunities for entrepreneurs in rural India’

Students urged to develop the skill set needed to be an entrepreneur

“The vast potential for entrepreneurship in rural India remains unexplored,” said Veerendra Patil, agri-biotechnology consultant, here on Sunday.

He was speaking after inaugurating a one-day workshop on entrepreneurship development organised by Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College. “There are huge opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs in rural India, especially in the way technology is applied in agriculture, and produce is processed and marketed. The rural agro-produce-based market is so huge that several corporate companies are coming out with plans to capture it systematically. Young people should realise this and become entrepreneurs,” he said.

‘Good at jugaad’

“Indians are very good at ‘jugaad’, or frugal innovations. This is internationally accepted. The Ahmedabad-based National Innovation Foundation maintains a register containing over 50,000 innovations by ordinary people from rural areas,” he said.

He said that 100 years ago, the British government had commissioned a study to estimate the potential for rural innovations. It produced a 180-page report listing several important, low-cost innovations in villages.

He gave examples of how some simple ideas had been turned into great businesses. Recent ones include selling branded sugarcane juice, home delivery of vegetables, giving flowerpots for hire and nurseries for fruits, flowers. In several cases, entrepreneurs had succeeded because they improved on old ideas, he said.

Reshma Kaur, vice-president of the Guru Nanak Dev Education Society, said that women were discouraged from becoming entrepreneurs in Indian society, which was still very male-dominated. Women decided over 75 per cent of the purchases at home, but they were not decision-makers in the industries that produce consumer goods, she said. She urged young women to become entrepreneurs rather than look for jobs.

Vaishali Nitturkar, founder of Gyan Tree, a Hyderabad-based consultancy, urged students to develop the skill set needed to be an entrepreneur. “Employers expect fresh recruits to have such qualities. You can’t get a job if you don’t have the skill set of an entrepreneur,” she said.

‘No dearth of funds’

Hemanth Nitturkar, entrepreneurship consultant, spoke about successful entrepreneurs like Bindeshwar Pathak, G. Venkatswamy and Yogesh Pande. He said that they had succeeded in turning a problem into an opportunity. There was no dearth of funding for entrepreneurs in present-day India, as there were several venture capitalists and investors looking for the right ideas. Even government institutions and public undertakings like the Central Food Technological Research Institute, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and the Union Science and Technology Department had schemes to support entrepreneurs.

The workshop was jointly organised by the college’s Entrepreneurship Development Cell, Gyan Tree and the Rotary Club of Bidar. Those present included EDC coordinator Rajshekar Gaitonde, Sunil Prabha and Manohar Dikshit.

More:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/huge-opportunities-for-entrepreneurs-in-rural-india/article4021062.ece