Stories from the heartland of UP are invariably about living on the margins. However, where women have come together to form Self Help Groups (SHGs) and stepped on to the economic ladder, the narrative is changing.
Since 2002, the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana, through a network of 1,31,175 SHGs across 43 districts, has transformed the lives of many women by making them entrepreneurs.
Take the story of Usha Singh, an SHG member from Naraini village of Amethi District, who, with two loans of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 and some money saved by her father-in-law, was able to buy two bighas of land and construct and run a co-ed school for 470 students.
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![Usha Singh]()
Usha Singh taking a class[/caption]
It was a struggle, but the Sarvodaya Bal Vidya Niketan, set up in 2011 in Nanha Bartoli, adjoining Naraini, is a recognized school with 11 rooms and 11 teachers. As the money came in from admission and tuition fees, rooms were added and teaching scaled to secondary level. Usha Singh, who had studied till graduation, is the headmistress of the school; her husband and father-in-law, qualified and experienced teachers, help run the school. The construction is basic but the teaching standards are high, attracting students. Of the Rs 85,000 a month that comes in as fees every month, Rs 45,000 goes towards teachers’ salaries.
At Phoolwari village, in the Phoolwari block of Lakhimpur Kheri, Manisha, Rekha and Preeti Gupta of the Ekta Mahila Gram Sangathan, all related by marriage, took loans and helped their husbands open and run Chandan Sweet House at Monu Chat Corner on the main road of Phoolwari.
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![Rekha and Preeti at their own eatery]()
Rekha and Preeti, at their own eatery[/caption]
Eight years ago, the shop they ran had been closed and their husbands were out of the village in search of livelihoods as electrician and bus conductor. In 2013, they took their first loan of Rs 10,000, and with Rs 1,000 the family could pool together, started the business. Then, with a second loan of Rs 10,000, they purchased the required kitchenware. In two years the eatery is doing well and the loan has been repaid with 2% interest. Its samosas, mithai and puri bhaji are in demand and often orders are received in advance. While the women manage the back end of the business, making the products for sale at home between 7 am and 9 am, the sales counters are managed by the men. Sales are brisk and the daily profits range from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500.
A family member, Chandan Gupta, who was in the catering business, groomed them for the enterprise, to bring that extra zing to their samosas. The 20 ft by 20 ft shop caters to 10 to 15 people at a time. Rekha, who has studied till Class 5, keeps the books, ensuring that purchase, sales and profits are neatly recorded. Rekha has taken another loan of Rs 15,000 and bought a freezer for keeping cold drinks. Adding to the business, in 2015, Manisha took a loan of Rs 2,000 and her husband bought a machine for packing namkeens. He buys 3-4 varieties in bulk and makes small packets. Not only have the women been the backbone of the business but their children are going to private schools too and life is looking up.
Forty-year-old Kiran, a mother of three, also from the SHG of Phoolwari, had never worked. But seeing the transformation in the lives of other women of her samooh, she took her first loan of Rs 5,000 in 2015 and started a bangle shop from a room in her home in the busy marketplace.
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![Kiran]()
Kiran, at her bangle shop[/caption]
Her husband takes her to Lakhimpur and she buys a variety of bangles in wholesale, keeping in mind the latest trends. Having repaid the loan, she has taken another of Rs 10,000 and is now also selling artificial jewellery,
mehendi and other decorative items used at weddings and special occasions. Her daily sales are Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 and, during festivals and weddings they shoot up to Rs 4,000 a day.
Bypassing money lenders, a large number of the SHG members across the state are taking loans and opening grocery stores, investing in goats, pigs and buffaloes to improve their economic status. There is no looking back for them. However, two stories that need to be told are of the mother and daughter team of Anju, a 45-year-old widow of Ekta Mahila Samooh, and her 21-year-old daughter Sandya, who, with SHG loans, have been able to take back eight
bighas of land they had kept in mortgage. Sarita, 30, of the same
samooh, was able to recover five
bighas of land that a landowner had grabbed taking advantage of her alcoholic husband.
Anju’s husband had blood cancer and she kept taking loans from the money lender keeping her eight
bighas on mortgage. However, he could not be saved. In 2013, she and her daughter, who is now doing her MA in political science, joined the
samooh, took a loan of Rs 20,000 and got back the mortgaged land. The mother and daughter toiled on the land and paid back the loan. Then they took another loan of Rs 10,000 and started running a general store; Rs 5,000 of the second loan too was repaid. Sandya’s 12-year-old brother, who goes to school in the morning, runs the shop in the evenings.
Sandya, who wants to become a teacher, says, “We have crawled back from hell. We are happy now and don’t depend on anyone. The mahajan (money lender) is losing a lot of his clients!”
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![Anju and Sandya]()
Anju and Sandya, at the grocery shop[/caption]
Sarita, mother of 15- and 10-year-old boys, joined the
samooh in 2013. Her husband worked as a casual labourer and blew up his earnings in booze. A landlord claimed her husband had borrowed Rs 20,000 and grabbed the five
bighas of land the family owned. So she took this amount as loan and recovered her land. A hard working woman, Sarita grows sugarcane on her five
bighas, as well as on two more
bighas she farms on. After paying off the initial loan she has taken two more loans of Rs 15,000 and Rs 12,000 and bought two buffaloes. She does farming, looks after the buffaloes and sells milk to improve her earnings. Her husband, living separately, continues to be an alcoholic. “He can no longer bully and beat me,” she says. Due to economic empowerment, women are now investing in better, private education for their children.
Like Anju and Sarita, five other women of Phoolwari have been able to release their mortgaged land with loans from the SHGs.
Lakshmi and Babli of the Pooja Mahila Samooh are big league entrepreneurs. With extremely supportive husbands, they run dhabhas on the Lakhimpur Kheri highway.
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![Lakshmi and Krishna Gopal, at the dhaba]()
Lakshmi and Krishna Gopal, at the dhaba[/caption]
In fact, this
samooh got a cash credit limit of Rs 3 lakhs from the Allahabad UP Grameen Bank. Lakshmi took two loans of Rs 20,000 and Rs 10,000 in 2013 to buy utensils, tables, chairs, gas, and basic necessities for running a big
dhaba that could cater to over 100 persons every day. The
dhaba is conveniently located opposite a cooking gas depot and there is an assured stream of customers from among those who come to collect gas as well as those working in the depot. Lakshmi’s husband, Krishna Gopal, has worked at Sheri-e-Punjab restaurant as a cook and makes good
desi and Chinese cuisine. A plate of dal, channa, sabzi and roti (quantity unlimited) costs Rs 50. Chicken and meat are made to order by Lakshmi at home and bring in more money.
Lakshmi says with pride, “
Mai gaddi per baithi hoon (I handle the cash)”. In addition, she runs a sweets shop where 15 to 20 items of peda, burfi, jalebi, samosas, etc., are made by hired cooks who are paid Rs 220 daily. Lakshmi’s five children study in a private school and the couple works hard, saving every day to return the loans.
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About the author: Usha Rai is a veteran development journalist and recipient of the Chameli Devi Award. At 76, she still enjoys travelling and reporting on the human story.
Sandeep, Vinod, Manjunath, Nitin and Chandan, the Adept Adlab team.[/caption]
Their new ‘adbag’ concept is a win-win situation not just for advertisers and grocery stores but also for the environment.
Paper bags can be expensive but the team has a way out. “The paper bag is divided into three slots, which are given to different companies as ad space,” says Sandeep. “The cost of printing ads on the entire paper bag is Rs 10 per bag. This is why we encourage two or three companies to advertise on one bag, so that the cost is divided.”
Inkinite rewritable notebooks and the adbags.[/caption]
Launched in February, Inkinite saves trees by reducing the usage of paper notebooks.
The sheets are made of whiteboard material and the pens have a fine tip to enable smooth writing or sketching. The books have blank pages, ruled pages, to-do list pages, and mind-mapping areas.
At the Open Street event at MG Road, Bengaluru, earlier in February, they sold out all their books.[/caption]
They also got a great response from selling online on Flipkart and Amazon. And they haven’t even begun marketing the notebooks yet.
They also plan to give away some of these notebooks to government schools around Bengaluru. “Some books are rejected due to minor damages such as printing errors,” explains Sandeep, “So we rectify these errors, and then donate them to schools for free.”
Manjunath, their in-house designer, works on coming up with attractive designs for the notebook covers. He also designs the advertisements on the paper bags.
Currently, they work out of Sandeep’s father’s office. “My father has been our mentor, while all our parents have supported us,” he says. Besides helping out with the initial funding for the projects, they’ve encouraged the boys throughout, even though they had their own doubts. He adds, “That was a major push for us or we wouldn't have survived till now. Before stumbling on to this notebook idea, we would have lost all hope if it weren't for them.”
For the boys, the driving factors are not the money they make or the sales they achieve. “We are happy we’re making an actual difference to the environment,” Sandeep says.
Swati gasped. She was now terribly angry with the child’s mother and couldn’t control her desire to confront her and question her cruelty. Swati asked the girl to take her to her mother. Her mind was crowded with questions that she would ask of her.
But she was in for her second shock of the day. Where she expected to see an exploitative mother, she saw the face of a helpless migrant woman who lived on the streets with her children and an alcoholic husband. The family had travelled all the way from Rajasthan looking for work. But no one was ready to trust them and give them jobs. Begging, then, became the family’s only option.
For the next couple of days, Swati went around looking for jobs for the migrant family. This hunt made her realise what such families go through in finding their footing.
Companies and households simply refused to give jobs to migrants, unwilling to take the risk of trusting total strangers whose identities they couldn’t trace.
Disappointed, Swati decided to go back to the family and apologise that she had failed to find them work. However, when she walked into their shelter, she saw a different scene altogether. The alcoholic husband had shaved and tidied himself. The children had not gone to beg. The mother was beaming with hope that their life was about to change. Looking at them, Swati could not bring herself to say that she had not succeeded.
She decided she would be the one to create jobs for them.
She sat down with them to find out what they could do. The family knew the art of making handicrafts so Swati decided to give handicraft making a try. She bought them some raw material for Rs 250 and they made beautiful crafts from it. Now it was time to be back at the busy signal.
Encouraged by their achievement and now confident of themselves, the family started making more handicrafts. Swati took their products beyond the traffic signals of Bangalore, under the banner of Om Shanti Traders. She sold their handicraft items as corporate and hospitality gifts. The takers for the products grew and so did the number of families that became part of Om Shanti Traders. Seeing the change she had brought to the life of the first family she helped, more and more street dwellers wanted to become part of Swati’s organization.
One thousand individuals who would otherwise be begging on the streets are able to earn up to Rs. 10,000 per month and lead dignified lives. Swati grew the business to set up a factory and provide accommodation facilities for these families. When families sign up with Om Shanti Traders, Swati insists they commit to sending their girl children to school; she funds this initiative herself. She notes that the boys have been a difficult lot to keep in school but is trying to ensure that happens as well.
All the while that she was changing the lives of street people, Swati continued to lead her life as a college student as well. She completed her BBM and MBA, efficiently juggling her studies with her social enterprise. Swati has now started her new entrepreneurial venture, which provides virtual exhibition services. Her company, Enrich Expo, provides scholarships to children from 12 different villages, each village getting Rs. 20 lakh. As she builds one entrepreneurial venture after another, she says she wants to eventually realize her vision of bridging the gap between the privileged and the underprivileged.
Representational image[/caption]
Representational image[/caption]
Kalyani Karnan is an entrepreneur who runs a millet-based products business.[/caption]
Not just Kalyani and her group, there are hundreds of other women who work alone or in groups in many rural parts of Tamil Nadu, to put millets in the spotlight. For some, it’s about offering a healthy alternative, for others it’s purely business, and for yet others it’s a source of pride and a means of livelihood.
One such woman who takes pride in her millet-based business is Selvi Somasundharraj from Lalgudi in Tiruchirappalli. A borrower and leader of a joint loan comprising five members, Selvi is an inspiration to many women. Selvi’s husband faced severe health issues due to kidney failure. Bedridden and unable to provide for his family, the responsibility fell on Selvi’s shoulders. She took it up as a challenge and became a saleswoman – she travels around on her trusted bicycle to sell murukku and other food items. When she came to know about GMF and the enterprise loans they offer, she decided to seek a loan to start her own business.
Tamilselvi Balu from the Panchayat town of South Kannanur[/caption]
Selvi Somasundharraj from Lalgudi[/caption]
Ronak Gupta and Abhishek Aggarwal[/caption]
Their next months are a testament to how the ecosystem around you extends its support when you work hard. They began to meticulously develop a business plan for the start-up, which went on to win many national B-plan competitions, including Intuit's SBIB competition, where they were declared winners amongst 500 small businesses across different sectors in the country. Their senior and fledgling entrepreneur himself, Nikunj Jain, provided a ton of guidance.
Routofy founders with Snapdeal Founders, Rohit Bansal and Kunal Behl[/caption]
Routofy Team Sessions[/caption]
Necessity is the mother of invention and that's exactly how things fell into place in this case. Each day of our lives is filled with new experiences and each of these everyday occurrences are eye-opening in their own way. The problems that we come across and the gaps that are waiting to be filled are actually opportunities, opportunities for us to make a difference in the lives of people.
Check out Routofy 
Renu is a living encyclopedia[/caption]
Renu has some assistance with production
Renu says she does not want to get into the logistics of transporting, which would require her to take on many more responsibilities and hire and manage more workers. This would also increase her expenses.
Pooja and Shalini provide clean, good quality dinnerware for parties, thus preventing a huge amount of garbage from reaching the landfills of Bangalore[/caption]
This waste is rarely segregated – plastic, paper and wet waste all end up in the landfills of the city. Pooja and Shalini had a brainwave - why not make dinnerware available for parties on rent? This simple idea could prevent loads of garbage from reaching landfills and harming the environment.
The two women started 'Spill Savers,' without much fanfare, but their popularity is growing by word of mouth.
Since January 2016, Spill Savers has rented out dinnerware to many eco-conscious customers, some of whom are organizing zero waste parties.[/caption]
Caterers in Bangalore do provide plates on rent but Spill Savers supplies entire dining sets, which include plates, bowls, spoons, water glasses, and even cloth napkins.
Entire dinner sets are made available by Spill Savers[/caption]
Pooja and Shalini decided their clients shouldn’t hesitate to use non-disposable wares just because they have to be cleaned. Spill Savers takes on the responsibility of cleaning the dirty dishes. The dinnerware is picked up as is after the party and Spill Savers cleans it at their end. So the convenience aspect stays intact and hygiene is taken care of too.
Around 4000 tonnes of solid waste is dumped in landfills outside the city every day.[/caption]
If you are in Bangalore, you know now what to do when you next host your party. And if you are not in Bangalore, shouldn’t you be emulating this idea?
Check out their 
Jayshree Ullal (L) and Neerja Sethi (R)[/caption]
Solid waste being weighed electronically[/caption]
Deepak Sethi, who grew up in Bangalore, did his MBA from Australia and has been working in the waste management sector for almost 15 years now. His partner, Kishore Thakur, is a graduate from Delhi University and a retired army officer. Both men are concerned environmentalists and were troubled by the deplorable manner in which recycling is handled all over India. Since they had some knowledge on how to facilitate this, they decided to set up a company.
Deepak Sethi and Kishore Thakur founded Pom Pom.[/caption]
Pom Pom operates only in South Delhi as of now. The company collects recyclable waste material from many homes in colonies from this part of Delhi. Recently, it began picking up recyclables from some foreign embassies too. Pom Pom operate 16 eco cars, 4 Tata Canters, and has a strength of around 50 employees.
Waste material being segregated by Pom Pom staff[/caption]
The shocking truth is that if, by 2020, something is not done to tackle the problem of waste, Delhi will need an additional area of around 28 sq km to dump the amount of garbage being generated daily in the city. The capital’s Department of Environment has reported that 85% of the city doesn’t have a formal door to door, trash pick-up system. Three of the designated waste landfills are overflowing and should have been closed down long ago. Around 9000 tons of trash is collected every day, with no place to go.
A school awareness program under way.[/caption]
Trash in Pom Pom's bags is much better than in overflowing landfills[/caption]
Awareness about recycling is extremely important to change the mindset regarding waste among people. Pom Pom is trying to do its bit by addressing the problem at the grassroots level. The company aims to bring in top corporate houses, banks, all educational institutions, government ministries, hotels and hospitals into this recycling movement.
To contact Pom Pom Recycling, log on to 
Make use of your network[/caption]
You should be on a constant lookout for inspiration and ideas from others. Networking can do wonders for your thought process, as can brainstorming.
The business strategy suggested by your more-experienced friends will keep you grounded and set your priorities right. A game-changing campaign could be born from the suggestions of mentors, previous initiatives of other startups or even your non-marketing colleagues.
Remember that you cannot know everything and that these people can provide useful bits of information from the mountain of things you don't know. You will also encounter a lot of irrelevant and seemingly useless advice, but don't let that deter you.
Why attempt everything yourself?[/caption]
Explore the tools, SaaS products and platforms that have been developed by others to make your life easier. Many functions, like PR and customer care, are traditionally outsourced by many; consider that aspect after you reach a certain scale. These can take a huge load off your back in terms of management, execution and analytics. And these come for almost all verticals, be it marketing, sales, bug fixing, CRM, etc. Why spend time creating things that have already been refined and perfected by experts?
Though many of these are paid-for-services, it's about weighing the expected ROI against using your own resources to develop these features by trial and error. Neglecting these aspects, or considering them unimportant is not a smart business strategy.
Numbers are an indication of where you stand[/caption]
The media, your employees, your friends and family will all have a perception of your performance. Gauge your progress and direct your future efforts based on what your numbers tell you. Your business strategy should always focus upon excelling in the metrics you have set for yourself, be it, GMV, app downloads, website traffic or any parameters you feel are important.
This also means that you should have a robust analytics system in place. Measure all your efforts, find out where users tend to drop off and which channel or tactic is working best for you. This will mean that you are not shooting in the dark, but are making informed decisions.
There are many more things to do, of course. This only touches the surface of what goes into building a wholesome business strategy, but will give you the confidence to forge ahead in the competitive market of today.
Written by Palak Bhatia of the 
An accident, as Nisha describes it, led to the creation of their company, ElRhino, which has been in operation for two years now. The 40-year-old corporate executive, who is based in Mumbai, recalls how it was her father, a retired mining engineer, who stumbled upon an article that described how elephant excreta was being used to make paper in Rajasthan. And this was in a region where elephants are not even commonly found. “He was really intrigued and thought why something like this couldn’t be done in Assam? He immediately decided to visit the dung-paper-making facility and see the process for himself,” she reveals.
When Nisha came home for a visit her father had done the research and had already started putting his idea into action.
Nisha Bora who runs ElRhino with her father Mahesh is happy that in their own way they are contributing to the conservation of rhinos and elephants in their state Assam.[/caption]
The project had begun with some extensive R&D (Research and Development) followed by a thorough recce of the logistics involved. It was only in 2014 that their manufacturing unit, which is located in Chaygaon village near Guwahati, actually became functional. Presently, they have 15 full-time employees on board and they outsource work to another 35 who work periodically every two-three months on specialised activities such as sourcing banana plants or working on developing indigenous designs.
So how do they go about turning poop into paper? The concept behind this is that both rhinos and elephants are vegetarians, eat a lot of grass and, therefore, their dung is full of fibre. The first step in the process, which is preparing the raw material, constitutes washing the dung to remove the faecal matter and retrieve the fibre. This is then boiled with banana plants (for added fibre). Next is the pulping process, where the prepared fibre mix is beaten together with cotton hosiery rags that have been cut into pieces.
It was Mahesh Bora who had stumbled up on an elephant poop paper-making venture in Rajasthan and decided to explore the possibility of replicating it in Assam.[/caption]
Although it’s been gaining popularity gradually, initially, the poop paper did not find many takers. Nisha says that she has to keep reiterating to prospective buyers how this kind of wood-free, chemical-free paper is of high quality and also versatile. And while her initial aim was not so much to “sell the paper” but more about positioning it as a venture that is not only beneficial for the local people but also contributes to saving the animals, Nisha realised soon enough the great power that consumers can wield. A huge demand would automatically give greater visibility to her other causes. That is why instead of simply focusing on producing paper she decided to diversify and make various products with it, including notebooks, journals and playing cards. “We even decided to embellish them with our native designs, like those on the ‘gamusa’ (Assamese towel),” she adds.
But, here’s the vital question: how does this help to protect the Great One-Horned Rhino? “Conservation can be of two kinds. Either you wear the uniform, become a part of the law enforcement agency and fight the poachers, or you can create an environment whereby you support the animal. Our effort is of the second kind,” she emphasises.
The one-horned rhino is a revered animal in Assam. Nisha says that, traditionally, the Assamese people refer to the animal in the most respectful term, ‘Aapuni’ (like ‘Aap’ in Hindi), and villagers who live in the vicinity of national parks, like Kaziranga or Pobitora, and frequently see the great beast, treat it like their own child.
ElRhino has their manufacturing unit in Chaygaon village near Guwahati with 15 full-time employees and another 35 who work periodically every two-three months on specialised activities.[/caption]
Attitudes, however, have changed to some extent – and not for the better. “There are two aspects to this. Firstly, a lot of migration in the area has led to a mixed population. The ones who have come in from the outside do not share the kind of reverential feelings that the locals have. Another problem is that the rhinos and elephants often destroy crops of people settled in the vicinity of the national parks. This is why some are inclined to overlook the presence of poachers. They know those who are indulging in poaching and who their informers are but they don’t report to the authorities,” she says.
ElRhino, Nisha feels, has made a difference by providing a respectable means of livelihood through those very animals, “turning indifferent people into protectors”. “Moreover, our venture pulls in many visitors every year, throwing the locals into spotlight, which builds their self-esteem immensely. The benefits go beyond the wallet.”
Thus far, the project has impacted nearly 400 individuals and helped develop skills of more than 150. ElRhino is now in talks with the forest officials at Kaziranga to set up a paper-making unit which would be good for the villagers nearby.
Low awareness level around the one-horned rhino, habitat and protection, are major issues that the venture seeks to address. She elaborates, “While designing our logo when I was searching the Internet for silhouettes of the one-horned rhino, I couldn’t find any! Can you believe it? People have such little knowledge about the one-horned rhino and don’t know the difference between this species and the African rhino (which has two horns). So our products, with their little messages, introduce our customers to the one-horned rhino and even spread the word against poaching.”
At the moment, ElRhino sources its cotton from Delhi and Gujarat, and is planning on importing it from Dhaka, Bangladesh, as well. This pushes up the production costs, and Nisha is confident that over time their paper will be 100 per cent cotton-free. “In the next one or two years, I plan to do some fund raising, invite volunteers, and bring together voices working on similar issues. We want to be like an aggregator of voices. Then maybe in five or six years, I want this to turn into a movement,” she says.
Funds for ElRhino’s work come from the Prabhan Barua Trust, instituted in her maternal grandfather’s name. He was the chief conservator of forests in the 1940s. Five percent of this “financially viable venture” goes back to conservation efforts in the state. With her father, who she insists is the “backbone” of the project, in Assam and she in Mumbai, ElRhino, with all the stumbling blocks on the way, seems to be moving ahead swiftly in the right direction. “Starting something so unique, about which so little was known, was in itself a challenge. Now, two years on, we are catering to requests for guidance for setting up similar paper-making ventures from places like Kerala. That is an achievement, isn’t it?” Nisha remarks with a well-deserved confidence.
Neha Arora, the founder of Planet Abled[/caption]
India is not a very disabled-friendly country, even though it has a significant disabled population. As per the census held in 2011, 2.21% of the Indian population suffers from some disability. This number increased by 22.4% between 2001 and 2011, and yet there is a huge lack of sensitization towards the differently-abled. This disregard for the disabled is not just confined to lack of facilities, such as wheelchairs and ramps and special toilets. Awareness about special needs is highly compromised in India and the differently-abled find it difficult to be accepted as a part of society.
Born to a visually challenged father and orthopedically challenged mother, Neha Arora grew up seeing her parents face these struggles on a daily basis. The family is very fond of travelling and the one thing that bothered her most was that accessibility was a huge issue while on the road or participating in leisure activities.
Qutub tour by Planet Abled[/caption]
It was a great hit with all the attendees. Neha and her team had tried to take care of everything. There were sign language interpreters for the hearing and speech impaired, well-trained volunteers, and a curator for the visually challenged participants who helped them get close to the structures and touch them. There was a history expert as well who spoke about the monuments and Delhi's history.
Over the next six months, Planet Abled ventured into customized tours, solo trips, food tours, and workshops. The company started to go places, quite literally.
Plant Abled is a novel concept born out of personal experience.
Red Fort tour by Planet Abled[/caption]
What Neha is doing is no easy task. Her team of five, which includes three full-time employees and two interns, works really hard at organizing these events. They plan each tour meticulously and try to preempt every possible scenario that differently-abled people might face during the tour. They’ve discovered that many tourist spots in India are still not wheelchair-friendly so they have procured a mobile ramp that they carry along on all tours. A travel buddy is assigned to each participant and special permissions are taken in advance wherever required. For instance, at a famous flower show, the team took special permission so that the visually challenged tourists could touch and smell the flowers.
There are other practical challenges – like finding accessible hotels that have multiple accessible rooms so that all the participants can stay together. Finding activities that are enjoyable and accessible to differently-abled people is yet another task. But they are getting there. With a lot of work of mouth appreciation, Planet Abled has been able to make a name for itself in a very short span of time. While earlier it was difficult to find volunteers, now people come themselves to be part of the initiative.
“It is difficult to find like-minded serious people who are as passionate about the cause as I am, but that has not deterred me. I want to go slow but steady,” Neha says.
The 
Solo tour for Bikash[/caption]
He wanted to take some time off from the over protective environment of his family and travel solo through Uttarakhand as a birthday gift to himself. Neha’s team planned and customized a trip for him that included Jim Corbett Park, Haridwar and Rishikesh. The freedom to travel solo, for a visually challenged person who had probably been told and made to believe many times that travelling alone was not for him, was exhilarating – what he experienced at the tour is something that other people cannot even fathom. All this happened thanks to the confidence Neha and her team gave him – that it was no big deal – if others could do it he could too.
Neha’s plans are quite clear - she wants travel to be more accessible and approachable for everyone. She wants Planet Abled to be an organization that people with disabilities trust and believe in for all their accessible travel and recreation needs.
Harish Dhandev[/caption]
Harish had 80 acres of ancestral land in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. Though his father Roopa Ram Dhandev was very passionate about farming, he could not devote much time to agriculture because of his regular government job as an engineer.
A civil engineering graduate from Arya College, Jaisalmer, Harish started working as a junior engineer in the municipal corporation in 2013. He was posted in Jaisalmer. In the meantime, his father retired and took up farming. Harish too started taking care of some of the farm work but had no intention of turning into a full-time farmer. He did, however, observe that many farmers worked hard but not smart, hence failing to achieve their best.
“I remembered this story about three woodcutters who were given an axe and were asked to cut a tree in three hours. Two of them started to cut the tree immediately. However, the woodcutter who won the challenge took two hours to sharpen the axe and then started cutting the tree. You need to plan and prioritise your work in order to get the best. The farmers I observed were lacking in these skills,” recalls Harish.
Slowly, as time passed, Harish started to feel drawn to the idea of applying his planning and executing skills, which he had learnt as an engineer, to farming. But he feared leaving his well paying, stable government job and taking a leap into the unknown. It was at this crucial juncture that he drew inspiration from his older sister, Anjana Meghwal.
Anjana, a mother of two, lost her husband in a car accident in 2011. She herself was in the hospital for 9 months, recovering from her injuries. But, she restarted her life all over again and is the Mayor of Jaisalmer today.
“My sister is my biggest motivation. I learnt from her that you have to take chances and if you are dedicated, then success is guaranteed,” says Harish.
And so, in 2013, just after few months of joining his government job, Harish quit and took up farming as a full-time career.
“The agriculture department suggested I grow crops like bajra, moong or gawar – crops that require little water. They did not suggest growing aloe vera, in spite of the fact that we were already cultivating it, because of a lack of market opportunities for the crop in the Jaisalmer area,” says Harish.
However, Harish did some research and discovered there were good possibilities of selling the product if he set his sight further afield and used online portals such as Indiamart to get to national and international markets.
The farm has 7 lakhs saplings now.[/caption]
Harish gets his fertilizer from the 20 cows he owns and some from his neighbours.[/caption]
He gets his fertilizer from the 20 cows he owns and some from his neighbours. His farm is also certified by ROCA (Rajasthan Organic Certification Agency).
Pulp Extraction Process[/caption]
Harish soon stopped supplying the leaves to his clients and trained his farm labourers to extract the pulp. This helped provide the labourers with some extra income.
His company, Dhandev Global Group, is located at Dhaisar, 45 kilometres from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. His turnover ranges between Rs. 1.5 and 2 crore. The aloe vera products of Dhandev Global Group are known by the brand name, ‘NATUREALO’ and he plans to supply them internationally very soon.
He downloads booklets and materials on various loan schemes made available by the government and distributes them among the farmers who have limited access to technology.
“Exposure to new resources, planning, optimization and execution – these things have helped me and I believe every farmer can benefit from such knowledge. But farmers too have to leave their fears behind and come out of their comfort zones,” says Harish.
To know more about Harish and his work, you can mail him at 
“I was a villager from Kerala. I didn’t dress as well as the others. My English wasn’t good and I certainly wasn’t as strong as the others academically. Though my five years in Delhi were enriching, they were also challenging for me as a person as I often felt like I wasn’t good enough,” he says.
In order to get a firm grasp on the subject, Jabir went to Coimbatore for three months and trained under Vellore Srinivasan, Project Director of Indian Green Service, a solid and liquid resource management company. Here, he worked as a ragpicker.
“If you give me 1,000 kg of waste, I can pick out 900 kg that is recyclable. What we require in this country are decentralised waste processing units. Right now, everything is taken to one centralised unit. Not only does this involve hefty transportation and labour charges, but it also leaves us with a huge pile of garbage to tackle,” he says.
Their work has gained a lot of traction and people keep calling them to tackle the waste generated at events.
Shakeef Khan and Sujeet Maadhogaria[/caption]
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“Back then, we were just a Facebook group with a vision to connect entrepreneurs with other meaningful people who have the required experience. Slowly, the community started to grow with people asking me questions on how to start a company, how to get funding, whom to approach for mentorship,” he says.
Today, Startup Delhi is a community of 31,000 people and Abhishek is planning to register Startup Delhi Private Limited as a company. The group has become a place for people to post job vacancies, looks for jobs, post resumes, share reading resources for other entrepreneurs, post requests for mentorship, etc.
“Startup Delhi is a platform for entrepreneurs to hire the suitable candidate for a job, find partners and most importantly its network where a lot of active member of the community help each other out,” says Abhishek.
This way he has worked with and helped 30-35 startups in some way or the other. An MBA in Marketing graduate, Abhishek is also closely working on mentoring some startups and helping a few others raise funds. After working for three years with media and education companies, he decided to quit his job and focus on startup Delhi to help it grow.
“If anyone wants to open a co-working space, I help them with the infrastructure, engagement, functioning, etc.,” says Abhishek who is currently freelancing to raise funds and is also preparing to start his own venture soon.
Join the group 
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Usha Singh taking a class[/caption]
It was a struggle, but the Sarvodaya Bal Vidya Niketan, set up in 2011 in Nanha Bartoli, adjoining Naraini, is a recognized school with 11 rooms and 11 teachers. As the money came in from admission and tuition fees, rooms were added and teaching scaled to secondary level. Usha Singh, who had studied till graduation, is the headmistress of the school; her husband and father-in-law, qualified and experienced teachers, help run the school. The construction is basic but the teaching standards are high, attracting students. Of the Rs 85,000 a month that comes in as fees every month, Rs 45,000 goes towards teachers’ salaries.
Rekha and Preeti, at their own eatery[/caption]
Eight years ago, the shop they ran had been closed and their husbands were out of the village in search of livelihoods as electrician and bus conductor. In 2013, they took their first loan of Rs 10,000, and with Rs 1,000 the family could pool together, started the business. Then, with a second loan of Rs 10,000, they purchased the required kitchenware. In two years the eatery is doing well and the loan has been repaid with 2% interest. Its samosas, mithai and puri bhaji are in demand and often orders are received in advance. While the women manage the back end of the business, making the products for sale at home between 7 am and 9 am, the sales counters are managed by the men. Sales are brisk and the daily profits range from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500.
A family member, Chandan Gupta, who was in the catering business, groomed them for the enterprise, to bring that extra zing to their samosas. The 20 ft by 20 ft shop caters to 10 to 15 people at a time. Rekha, who has studied till Class 5, keeps the books, ensuring that purchase, sales and profits are neatly recorded. Rekha has taken another loan of Rs 15,000 and bought a freezer for keeping cold drinks. Adding to the business, in 2015, Manisha took a loan of Rs 2,000 and her husband bought a machine for packing namkeens. He buys 3-4 varieties in bulk and makes small packets. Not only have the women been the backbone of the business but their children are going to private schools too and life is looking up.
Kiran, at her bangle shop[/caption]
Her husband takes her to Lakhimpur and she buys a variety of bangles in wholesale, keeping in mind the latest trends. Having repaid the loan, she has taken another of Rs 10,000 and is now also selling artificial jewellery, mehendi and other decorative items used at weddings and special occasions. Her daily sales are Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 and, during festivals and weddings they shoot up to Rs 4,000 a day.
Bypassing money lenders, a large number of the SHG members across the state are taking loans and opening grocery stores, investing in goats, pigs and buffaloes to improve their economic status. There is no looking back for them. However, two stories that need to be told are of the mother and daughter team of Anju, a 45-year-old widow of Ekta Mahila Samooh, and her 21-year-old daughter Sandya, who, with SHG loans, have been able to take back eight bighas of land they had kept in mortgage. Sarita, 30, of the same samooh, was able to recover five bighas of land that a landowner had grabbed taking advantage of her alcoholic husband.
Anju’s husband had blood cancer and she kept taking loans from the money lender keeping her eight bighas on mortgage. However, he could not be saved. In 2013, she and her daughter, who is now doing her MA in political science, joined the samooh, took a loan of Rs 20,000 and got back the mortgaged land. The mother and daughter toiled on the land and paid back the loan. Then they took another loan of Rs 10,000 and started running a general store; Rs 5,000 of the second loan too was repaid. Sandya’s 12-year-old brother, who goes to school in the morning, runs the shop in the evenings.
Anju and Sandya, at the grocery shop[/caption]
Sarita, mother of 15- and 10-year-old boys, joined the samooh in 2013. Her husband worked as a casual labourer and blew up his earnings in booze. A landlord claimed her husband had borrowed Rs 20,000 and grabbed the five bighas of land the family owned. So she took this amount as loan and recovered her land. A hard working woman, Sarita grows sugarcane on her five bighas, as well as on two more bighas she farms on. After paying off the initial loan she has taken two more loans of Rs 15,000 and Rs 12,000 and bought two buffaloes. She does farming, looks after the buffaloes and sells milk to improve her earnings. Her husband, living separately, continues to be an alcoholic. “He can no longer bully and beat me,” she says. Due to economic empowerment, women are now investing in better, private education for their children.
Like Anju and Sarita, five other women of Phoolwari have been able to release their mortgaged land with loans from the SHGs.
Lakshmi and Krishna Gopal, at the dhaba[/caption]
In fact, this samooh got a cash credit limit of Rs 3 lakhs from the Allahabad UP Grameen Bank. Lakshmi took two loans of Rs 20,000 and Rs 10,000 in 2013 to buy utensils, tables, chairs, gas, and basic necessities for running a big dhaba that could cater to over 100 persons every day. The dhaba is conveniently located opposite a cooking gas depot and there is an assured stream of customers from among those who come to collect gas as well as those working in the depot. Lakshmi’s husband, Krishna Gopal, has worked at Sheri-e-Punjab restaurant as a cook and makes good desi and Chinese cuisine. A plate of dal, channa, sabzi and roti (quantity unlimited) costs Rs 50. Chicken and meat are made to order by Lakshmi at home and bring in more money.
Lakshmi says with pride, “Mai gaddi per baithi hoon (I handle the cash)”. In addition, she runs a sweets shop where 15 to 20 items of peda, burfi, jalebi, samosas, etc., are made by hired cooks who are paid Rs 220 daily. Lakshmi’s five children study in a private school and the couple works hard, saving every day to return the loans.