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
