The rise of Dalit entrepreneurship
It was a mass lunch thrown by upper-caste Marathas and the nine-year-old was seated along with his mother in a corner of the temple where Dalits of the village ate. "We were segregated from the upper-caste Hindus, which was very humiliating. Even as a child, I felt insulted and would cry each time my parents would talk of visiting the village. I didn't return after that,'' he says.
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• Plan panel mulls ways to spur Dalit capitalism
The government has begun discussions with Dalit entrepreneurs on what can be done to promote business ventures set up by members of their community.
As a part of its discussions with various groups before it finalizes the 12th Plan for 2012-17, the Planning Commission has sought suggestions from the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Dicci), a business group, on what can be done to spur Dalit capitalism, how these business ventures can be funded, and how Dalit voices can be heard while charting out policies.
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Plan panel mulls ways to spur Dalit capitalism
Pallavi Singh
As a part of its discussions with various groups before it finalizes the 12th Plan for 2012-17, the Planning Commission has sought suggestions from the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Dicci), a business group, on what can be done to spur Dalit capitalism, how these business ventures can be funded, and how Dalit voices can be heard while charting out policies.
Narendra Jadhav, a member of the panel, said a proposal to introduce executive development programmes for Dalit entrepreneurs at some of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) is also being considered. "(We are) very seriously contemplating the idea to have some kind of formal executive development programme for Dalit entrepreneurs. It can be outsourced to some of the IIMs. Most Dalit entrepreneurs have business skills, but they need polishing, particularly the younger ones. This will be considered, examined and polished in the 12th Plan. We will make a policy in this regard," Jadhav said.
In a meeting held earlier this week, the planning body has also suggested that the chamber set up a venture capital fund to finance projects promoted by entrepreneurs born at the bottom of the caste pyramid and indicated that the government could consider picking up a stake in this fund, officials said.
The chamber will soon appoint a committee to formulate concrete suggestions. This is the first time that a Dalit business forum has been invited to make suggestions to the Plan panel.
"There are two things: one is promoting entrepreneurship that's an end objective in itself. If there are difficulties faced by some communities, then you may need special interventions," said Pronab Sen, principal adviser to the panel.
Jadhav said encouraging or creating situations for expansion of Dalit entrepreneurship also has an employment angle. "If there is a policy in this regard, it will also give fillip to employment of Dalits (by Dalit entrepreneurs). It is also about taking cognizance of the fact that there is a greater change taking place in society, and also about being open to voices from the ground while formulating the 12th Plan to make it more focused on the real issues from the ground," he added.
Raising the funding limit for Dalit enterprises through the National Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC), the apex government body for finance of small-scale businesses run by the weaker sections, is one of the suggestions Dicci made to the panel. The finance body grants a maximum loan of Rs. 7 lakh for Dalit businesses while its state wings mostly offer composite loans of a maximum amount of Rs. 50,000.
"Most government schemes for financing Dalit businesses expect them to be small-scale, such as buying cattle to set up a milking unit, or an autorickshaw. In the meeting between Dicci and the Plan panel, just one out of 35 Dalit entrepreneurs with businesses worth crores had availed of a loan from NSFDC and that Rs. 7 lakh loan took three years! Sadly, the government finds it difficult to believe that Dalits also could need a loan of Rs. 80 crore or so," says Chandra Bhan Prasad, an independent Dalit activist and writer, who was a part of the Dicci delegation that met the Plan panel earlier this week.
The Plan panel's deliberations with the Dalit business group seem to be guided by the changing socio-economic realities of India, and the steady rise of Dalit capitalism in particular. Considered the most underprivileged community in India, a section of Dalits are now engaging in large-scale businesses for the creation of wealth and employment that allow them an escape both from the demeaning tasks assigned to them by the caste system and the stigma of being branded as non-meritorious beneficiaries of reservations in education and employment.
"There are Dalit entrepreneurs who are into large-scale manufacturing and are also suppliers for government-run bodies such as the Indian Railways and the Delhi Metro, which proves that Dalit businesses are no less competitive and efficient than others," said Milind Kamble, chairman of Dicci, who also attended the meeting.
The key demands that the chamber made to the Plan panel were to include Dalit entrepreneurs in priority-sector lending at special rates through institutions such as the Small Industries Development Bank of India and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. "We also asked for appointment of Dicci members on government panels, ministries and committees engaged in policymaking, just the way members from Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) are appointed," Kamble said.
D. Shyam Babu, a fellow of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies in New Delhi whose research on Dalits and the new economic order has highlighted the social advance of the community in the wake of globalization, said government measures to promote Dalit capitalism will help create a Dalit bourgeoisie. "Most Dalit entrepreneurs face problems varying from difficulty in getting enough supplies on credit, lack of social networks, absence of kin groups in the business, and control of traditionally dominant business-caste groups. These, along with other social variables such as lack of social capital, make the Dalit situation more complicated and vulnerable to homogeneous categorization," says Surinder S. Jodhka, a professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Jodhka's paper, Dalits in Business: Self-Employed Scheduled Castes in Northwest India, drew insights on the expansion of private capital in India during the post-1991 period and highlighted the discrimination faced by Dalit businesses.
Prasad said the government should also formulate policies that favour grant of a certain number of tenders to Dalits. "Once Dalits are put in the supply chain, since the government is the biggest employer, discrimination in labour markets would also end," he said.
Montek's promise to Dalit Chamber
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the planning commission, has assured a delegation of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DICCI) that the aspirations of dalit entrepreneurs will receive favourable consideration in the preparation of the 12th five-year plan.
Ahluwalia had invited DICCI members to understand what they expected from the planners. A delegation of 40 members, led by the chamber's chairman Milind Kamble, recently met Ahluwalia in New Delhi.
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Workshop on time management: The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce and Industries and Agriculture has organised a workshop on time management on Tuesday at the MCCIA, S B Road, between 10 am and 5 pm.
Sharau Rangnekar, a chemical engineer from Mumbai is the faculty for the workshop. Topics like basics of times management, balancing time between contribution value, leisure value and transfer value, managing relationships, effective and efficient use of time, will be covered during the workshop. For details and registration contact: 25709132/ 25709000.
India in Transition
Dalit Agenda for the New Government
A consensus on issues of national concern can sometimes be hard to reach, particularly in a democracy of more than a billion people; one that has countless social markers. In India, however, there seems to be a consensus of an exceptional order on the question of economic reforms. The country's two main political blocs: the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance are closer to each other on economic reforms than not. Even the Left-ruled West Bengal is embracing economic reform despite its ideological pretensions. At the same time though, there are a few dissenting voices that question the process – as well as benefits – of the economic reforms that were initiated in 1991 by the then-Finance Minister and current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
The Dalit middle class, in particular, sees economic reforms more as a "challenge" than an opportunity. Notwithstanding the fact that the reform-led new economy is introducing a host of "caste-neutral" occupations, Dalits see the new political consensus on reforms as undermining the grand consensus India had arrived at six decades ago. With the launch of the Republic in 1950, India's political class had agreed to integrate Dalits with the mainstream society and its economy. Now, Dalits worry that due to reform-led privatization and job cuts in the public sector, the Dalit middle class is getting a short shrift. Since 1991, Congress and the BJP both have taken turns in power. Even regional parties with committed Left support have had their share of ruling India. But none of them truly appreciated that a Dalit concern existed.
Once the current global economic downturn is behind us, reforms will likely take on newer dimensions, leading to higher anxiety within the Dalit community. The issue then turns to how India, as a nation, can keep making gains without carrying its historically disadvantaged social groups along. Why should the reforms produce a class of people hostile to its otherwise modern agenda when it is so easy to address the 1950 consensus?
Last mile connectivity
I know a Dalit entrepreneur in Delhi who manufactures copper wires and cables for use by Indian Railways. The fact that his products are used by the Railways shows that he hasn't compromised on quality. With a huge public sector base, the State is one of the largest consumers of goods and services produced by the private sector. But procurement rules are so heavily loaded in favor of old players that new players, particularly Dalits, find it hard to enter the supply chain.
With no "social" friends, Dalit entrepreneurs find it even harder to crack the supplier/dealership chain. The Dalit wire manufacturer mentioned earlier, therefore, must sell his products to a middleman who, in turn, sells the products to the Railways at a premium. The middleman with the bigger margin has become bigger in revenue, while the Dalit manufacturer with smaller margin remains small.
To weed out this sort of discrimination – not to mention inefficiency – the next government ought to constitute a body, say, the "National Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes Supplier Development Council." This body will be enjoined with the twin task of identifying Dalit/Tribal entrepreneurs who are already supplying goods and services to the government through middlemen, and then connecting them directly to procurement departments. This will empower thousands of Dalit entrepreneurs to become big players within a decade. The private sector too can be enticed and encouraged to partner in economic gains with Dalit entrepreneurs. India's business schools can also be used to train Dalit entrepreneurs in modern systems of business management.
There is international precedent for such systems: Once the racially-divided United States decided to put its "social house" in order, promoting black entrepreneurs was one of the directions it took. In 1972, a few large American corporations set up a body called the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). Based in New York, the NMSDC has 39 regional centers across the U.S. With 3,500 U.S. corporations as its members, the NMSDC connects minority entrepreneurs with big American companies. The effect of the NMSDC experiment has been wonderful. In 1972, minority entrepreneurs got businesses through the NMSDC worth $86 million. By 2007, that number had reached $104.7 billion.
The next Indian government should emulate the NMSDC model in India to integrate Dalits with the market. Once a few thousand Dalit entrepreneurs are integrated with government private sector businesses, doing business with Dalit entrepreneurs might gain currency and Dalits will stop being complainers.
No more welfare queens
The next government can also restore sanity to its welfare schemes. With nearly half a million Public Distribution System (PDS) shops, the government of India subsidizes food grain for 330 million people, costing billions of rupees annually. Many more billions are being spent annually through the now-controversial National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). There are many more pro-poor projects running parallel to PDS and NREGS involving billions of rupees, such as the multi-billion Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), which is designed to feed all government elementary schools kids, irrespective of economic background.
Do such schemes actually reach their intended beneficiaries? The late Rajeev Gandhi shocked the nation in 1987 when he admitted that a mere ten percent of welfare money reaches its target. Two decades later, on January 17, 2008, his son and Congress general secretary and Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi claimed that only five percent of welfare money reaches its intended beneficiaries. In other words, in two decades, we have doubled the inefficiencies of the welfare system. When we all know that billions of rupees don't reach their intended beneficiaries, why do we continue to waste the money and corrupt the entire society?
The next government should create a database of all families in distress, declare them pensioners, and deposit money directly to their bank accounts. It can be done. If the Election Commission of India can reach out to all the families in India and make their photo IDs, surely the federal government can identify some 15 to 20 percent of families in real distress and fund them directly.
Mechanization, modernization, neutralization
Historically, the occupation of sanitation – cleaning toilets, clearing drainage and sewage systems, sweeping roads, and collecting trash – has been considered the most demeaning occupation in India. By tradition, not all Dalits are sanitation workers. However, all sanitation workers are most likely Dalits, and the most despised section of Dalits at that, as people typically avoid touching them. For decades, a host of schemes have been announced to liberate Dalits from the tyranny of such degrading occupations, but nothing substantial has happened. The next government needs to take a vow to tackle this issue once and for all. It is surprisingly easy to accomplish.
I recently conducted research to find out the caste of sanitation staff in three shopping malls in and around Delhi. While the data is still being studied, preliminary analysis shows a significant number of non-Dalits – including Brahmans – cleaning toilets and floors inside the malls.
So what exactly has brought about this seismic change in attitude? Malls – run by corporate houses – have completely redefined the occupation of sanitation. Brooms have been replaced by imported mechanical devices. Workers wear gloves, caps, and in some places, even ties. They use bottled sprinklers to clean commodes and basins, and motorized trolleys to move trash. This has the effect of giving sanitation workers the image of professional workers; more paramedic than janitor, as it were. With little money and some innovative thinking, the occupation of sanitation has become caste-neutral, and the kachrawallah (garbage man) has become "housekeeping staff."
The new government needs to take similar steps. It must emulate the model developed by corporations and mechanize all sanitation-related activities that still largely employ Dalits. Once this is done, the stigma that is associated with manually removing solid and liquid waste will be removed, and the caste-based occupation of sanitation will become caste-neutral.
We ought to remember that unless linkages between occupation and caste disappear, caste will never be eliminated from India's public sphere.
Chandra Bhan Prasad is a writer and one of India's leading Dalit thinkers. He is the only Dalit to have a weekly column in a national English daily newspaper, The Pioneer. He was a visiting scholar for the fall semester 2007 at the Center for the Advanced Study of India. His story and writings can be seen at www.chandrabhanprasad.com.
India in Transition (IiT) is published by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) of the University of Pennsylvania. All viewpoints, positions, and conclusions expressed in IiT are solely those of the author(s) and not specifically those of CASI.
© 2009 Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved.
http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/iit/cbprasad
| Dalit entrepreneurs in resurgent mode |  |  |  |
| Written by Correspondent | |
| Tuesday, 24 July 2007 | |
 Tirupur: Sivakumar, a law graduate, is busy these days. He has been running a garment unit with nearly 40 workers on two shifts a day for the last three months. Just six months ago, he had closed the unit for want of working capital.He owes his happiness to the Tirupur Apparel Park India Private Ltd formed by the ailing units at THADCO Knitwear Industrial Estate at Mudalipalayam in Tamil Nadu with government support. The company is now pumping orders to his unit. It has also resulted in a lot of improvements at the knitwear industrial estate established by the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation on over 100 acres. It was wearing a deserted look all these years. The industrial estate, started with the aim of making Dalits entrepreneurs, has somehow missed the bus even as the rest of Tirupur grew by leaps and bounds. The units here have 97 imported knitting machines, six embroidery machines and a garment unit. Now all the sick units have started functioning as a single unit forming a company. The company is now getting job-work orders for knitting and garment units. In the last couple of months, most of the otherwise idle knitting machines are busy, as the company was able to bring orders worth Rs 30 lakh. "We want to function as a professional company. We have excellent infrastructure here. Now, our focus is on cost cutting and putting proper systems in place. We are planning direct exports, from knitting to finished products in a year by ensuring quality parameters at all levels," says its chief executive director MC Sankaran. Those gave knitting orders are happy with the quality, he adds. The company now has plenty of orders in hand and was planning to train hundreds of workers for its proposed garment unit. (The Hindu dated 24 July 2007) | |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 August 2007 ) |
Londhe wanted to start a garment manufacturing unit in his home district of Sangli, Maharashtra, but could not find someone who would lend him Rs. 7 lakh to start his unit. A bank denied him the loan at the last minute, without giving any valid reason. This delayed his plans to start the unit by a year, and forced him to sell his house and wife's jewellery and take loans from a money lender to meet the shortfall. "My qualifications and ability did not matter; age-old perceptions and discriminations did," says Londhe. In the past two years, however, he has made good progress. Today, he employs 225 people in his business of exporting gloves to Japanese firms and has a turnover of more than Rs. 1 crore. Still, he faces difficulties in getting orders or funding from within the country. It is no surprise then that Londhe feels buoyed by the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) latest open declaration for affirmative action. On May 18, CII President B. Muthuraman announced that the industry body will work closely with the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) to increase sourcing of goods and services from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC and ST) entrepreneurs by 10 to 20 percent. Today, DICCI has 1,000 entrepreneurs as members, 400 of whom are in Maharshtra. In 2005, when it started, it had only 100 members. "[The CII] should have done this a long time ago," says Londhe, who could not take up an order from a Tata group company last year for manufacturing 21 lakh pairs of gloves because no financier believed he could deliver to the Tata group. He feels such an open declaration could bring about a sea change in the way Dalit entrepreneurs are perceived in society. "It is a significant event since it is the first time the industry is officially declaring this," says Chandra Bhan Prasad, one of the leading Dalit thinkers in the country. Prasad has been spearheading the cause of affirmative action both in public and private sector. "We started this agenda in Bhopal in 2002 when the Madhya Pradesh government ruled that its departments would source 30 percent of its purchases from SCs and STs." But the untold truth is that there has been more discrimination in the private sector than in the public. Prasad says that although there are many Dalit businessmen in the country, they are weighed down by negative perceptions and most are unable to grow their businesses beyond Rs. 50 crore. Most Dalit entrepreneurs end up becoming third party suppliers in large businesses. "They don't get a direct first party contract," he says. "It is tough enough in government dealings, but in the private sector it is worse," says Ratibhai Makwana, who speaks from his experience of more than six decades as a businessman in Gujarat, with a turnover of Rs. 200 crore. There is another reason why the call for affirmative action in the private sector is being taken as a watershed event by Dalit businessmen and thinkers. "We want to be job givers, not job seekers," says Adhik Rao Sadamate of Sadamate Industries, as he complains against the continuing stereotyping of Dalits as incapable of delivering quality. Prasad feels that while the move will benefit many young Dalit entrepreneurs to gain a footing in business, the real benefit is the possible change in the way in which Dalits are looked at, by themselves and others. "We need role models. Dalit entrepreneurs need to believe and this could be the gentle push they need," he says. Milind Kamble, head of DICCI, says he is busy finalising a list of about 400 members who could well be the first ones to benefit from the CII's move. Joint steps The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has also set a target of training 50,000 youngsters from among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs)and facilitate an equal number of them with employment in 2011-12. Milind Kamble, head of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), says the CII would be using its own training centres, in places like Pune and Ahmedabad, for this purpose. By the first week of June, DICCI will be providing the CII with a list of 400 Dalit entrepreneurs, from among its 1,000 members, who could benefit from the CII's move to increase sourcing of goods and services from SC and ST entrepreneurs. |
| Dalit is a Dalit even in a 'free' market | |
| RADHIKA RAMASESHAN | |
New Delhi, March 21: Caste is feudal, the market free and equal. Correct? Ask Ratan Lal Sirswal or Deepak Jatav. Sirswal, 75, had started off as a sweeper but is now one of the oldest businessmen in Panipat, Haryana. He quit his sweeper's job once his handloom unit was on its feet. His success, he says, came largely because he hid the fact that he was born a Valmiki Dalit. Customers who discovered his caste origins shunned him. Banks would not give loans because caste matters to them too, and Dalit entrepreneurs are too few and far between to work the system as a group like the upper castes do. Jatav, 51, is an established footwear manufacturer in Saharanpur, western Uttar Pradesh. Even today, he says, people refer to him by a caste label whose use is a non-bailable offence under the SC/ST Act. His non-Dalit peers, however, are respectfully called "businessmen". Upper-caste traders deal with Dalits only if they have to, he says. Theirs are some of the testimonies included in a pioneering study on first-generation Dalit entrepreneurs by Surinder S. Jodhka for the Institute of Dalit Studies in New Delhi. Jodhka, a sociology professor with JNU, contests the tendency of academic writings to look at caste as a "traditional system of social hierarchy and culture" that is expected to weaken and eventually get subsumed by the whirligig of development and modernisation. "In the mainstream understanding of textbook economics, development or the market were essentially secular or socially neutral and anonymous processes. Similarly, the social science understanding of entrepreneurship has typically revolved around the notion of a rational individual operating in a supposedly free-market economy," he has written in a paper titled "Dalits in business: Self-employed Scheduled Castes in northwest India". Jodhka's study aims to show just how "free" the market economy is for Dalits, two-thirds of whom are land-less or marginal farmers with virtually no employment or wealth-generating assets. The sociologist, who drew his samples from industrially prosperous Panipat and Saharanpur, found that most of the Dalit entrepreneurs ventured into basic businesses such as small shop-keeping, contracts and dealerships (like gas agencies), and skilled service (like plumbing or electrician's businesses). Hardly one or two per cent were into more capital-intensive enterprises such as hotels, factories and educational institutions. When the Dalit entrepreneurs were asked if caste mattered in the "secular" business space, a typical answer was: "They hate us; non-Dalits do not like us being in business." A doctor in Saharanpur said upper-caste patients came to him only as a last resort. Ram Kumar, 35, who set up a school against strong opposition in Saharanpur had to struggle to get it recognised by the education authorities. His students are drawn from among the Dalits, the most backward classes and low-caste Muslims. No landowner, Hindu or Muslim, would think of enrolling his child in Kumar's school. Even locating the entrepreneurs was a problem for the researchers: they had to rely on local activists. Barring one, the rest were first-generation entrepreneurs whose fathers were either unlettered or barely literate. All of them had a problem finding space to rent. Despite the hiccups, the study found that the Dalits' enterprises, however small, had grown — though they were reluctant to fill in the details because most of them kept no books nor filed tax returns. Most of them also felt that economic success had helped them enter the mainstream political space. They looked on themselves as "role models" for the community. But every one of them said that if they could, they would send their children abroad where caste did not exist. |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100322/jsp/nation/story_12246448.jsp
| Dalit entrepreneurs in resurgent mode | | | |
| Written by Correspondent | |
| Tuesday, 24 July 2007 | |
| Tirupur: Sivakumar, a law graduate, is busy these days. He has been running a garment unit with nearly 40 workers on two shifts a day for the last three months. Just six months ago, he had closed the unit for want of working capital. He owes his happiness to the Tirupur Apparel Park India Private Ltd formed by the ailing units at THADCO Knitwear Industrial Estate at Mudalipalayam in Tamil Nadu with government support. The company is now pumping orders to his unit. It has also resulted in a lot of improvements at the knitwear industrial estate established by the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation on over 100 acres. It was wearing a deserted look all these years. The industrial estate, started with the aim of making Dalits entrepreneurs, has somehow missed the bus even as the rest of Tirupur grew by leaps and bounds. The units here have 97 imported knitting machines, six embroidery machines and a garment unit. Now all the sick units have started functioning as a single unit forming a company. The company is now getting job-work orders for knitting and garment units. In the last couple of months, most of the otherwise idle knitting machines are busy, as the company was able to bring orders worth Rs 30 lakh. "We want to function as a professional company. We have excellent infrastructure here. Now, our focus is on cost cutting and putting proper systems in place. We are planning direct exports, from knitting to finished products in a year by ensuring quality parameters at all levels," says its chief executive director MC Sankaran. Those gave knitting orders are happy with the quality, he adds. The company now has plenty of orders in hand and was planning to train hundreds of workers for its proposed garment unit. (The Hindu dated 24 July 2007) | |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 August 2007 ) |
| Dalit entrepreneurs in resurgent mode | | | |
| Written by Correspondent | |
| Tuesday, 24 July 2007 | |
| Tirupur: Sivakumar, a law graduate, is busy these days. He has been running a garment unit with nearly 40 workers on two shifts a day for the last three months. Just six months ago, he had closed the unit for want of working capital. He owes his happiness to the Tirupur Apparel Park India Private Ltd formed by the ailing units at THADCO Knitwear Industrial Estate at Mudalipalayam in Tamil Nadu with government support. The company is now pumping orders to his unit. It has also resulted in a lot of improvements at the knitwear industrial estate established by the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation on over 100 acres. It was wearing a deserted look all these years. The industrial estate, started with the aim of making Dalits entrepreneurs, has somehow missed the bus even as the rest of Tirupur grew by leaps and bounds. The units here have 97 imported knitting machines, six embroidery machines and a garment unit. Now all the sick units have started functioning as a single unit forming a company. The company is now getting job-work orders for knitting and garment units. In the last couple of months, most of the otherwise idle knitting machines are busy, as the company was able to bring orders worth Rs 30 lakh. "We want to function as a professional company. We have excellent infrastructure here. Now, our focus is on cost cutting and putting proper systems in place. We are planning direct exports, from knitting to finished products in a year by ensuring quality parameters at all levels," says its chief executive director MC Sankaran. Those gave knitting orders are happy with the quality, he adds. The company now has plenty of orders in hand and was planning to train hundreds of workers for its proposed garment unit. (The Hindu dated 24 July 2007) | |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 August 2007 ) |
Good day to all,
It gives me immense pleasure to present DICCI, a social organization dedicated to the upliftment of businessmen from the deprived section of society. In fact I envisage DICCI as a forum rather than a social organization that would bring about a paradigm shift in the dynamics of the society.
As a qualified civil engineer, I am connected to many businessmen across the state and I have observed that given the opportunity, youths from Dalit community would prove no less, on any front, than entrepreneurs that emerge from the rest of the society. What is lacking is the opportunity and exposure and a platform to prove their excellence.
DICCI helps such potential entrepreneurs to develop their confidence and face the challenges in the open world without the fear of rejection. With excellence in product quality, they can match up to competition ably. That is the confidence we intend to develop.
DEEP EXPO 2010 is our first step forward towards this objective. This first of its kind exposition will be organized from 4th June to 6th June 2010 on Engineering College Ground, Pune and over 150 entrepreneurs will present their work and area of skills here. DEEP EXPO 2010 would provide a good and fair opportunity to our Dalit entrepreneurs to prove that they can not only meet market expectations, but can exceed them.
I appeal to all businessmen from all sections of society, to welcome our Dalit entrepreneurs with open arms and integrate them in the mainstream. This will not only help to improve your business but will be great support to struggling businessmen.
I invite you all to visit, support and add value to our mission.
Looking forward
Milind Kamble.
| Dalit entrepreneurs make a case for themselves Self-made businessmen want less discrimination, greater opportunity BY Anurag Srivastava Swapnil Bhingardevay runs an industrial unit and produces ethanol which feeds into production of fuel. Currently, he has purchase orders from all the three major oil marketing companies – Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd – and needs working capital to get going. He can meet the orders but for one hitch: A major bank, which he refuses to identify, has not yet disbursed the loan for the capital despite all the paperwork having been complete. He has a bigger reason why he has not been given the loan – he is a Dalit. "Even when you are a (Rs) 90 crore annual turnover industrialist, you face the brunt of regional politics," he says. The first-generation Dalit multimillionaire from Satara, Maharashtra, is shoulders above a common man but at his level, he can be yet be checked from growing too big. His might be a special case. "It is true that having made our millions, we do not face problems that ordinary people do," says Milind Kamble, chairman of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce (DICCI), "but there are greater limits to entry for the Dalits in general and different types of problems at higher levels which are caste specific." Both were part of a DICCI delegation that on Monday met Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, to bring up issues facing Dalit entrepreneurs. The purpose of the chamber is to establish communication lines with the government and to turn as many Dalits as possible into entrepreneurs, besides safeguarding members' interests. It wants government provision of larger chunks of finance to Dalit entrepreneurs, starting with modifying funding schemes such as the one from the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation, which provides loans subject to an upper limit of Rs 5 lakh. The key demands that the chamber made to the government was to include Dalit entrepreneurs in priority-sector lending at special rates through institutions such as the Small Industries Development Bank of India and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. The fact that there is a vibrant Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce comprising first-generation, self-made Dalit industrialists, and the fact that they want better opportunities for their kind, is a welcome development, and gives a different meaning to affirmative action. It marks progress in the sense that India Inc is not the sole preserve of those born rich – or as upper castes. | ||||
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Dalit Entrepreneurs celebrate the launch of Dicci's Mumbai chapter
MUMBAI: Dalit capitalism, on the fringes of socioeconomic debate for a while, finally ordained its high priests, bared the material possessions and aplomb of new Dalit wealth, and basked in a serenade by officials of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) at a 'coming out' party of sorts in Mumbai on Saturday.
Some of the 1,000-odd signatories to this new take on capitalism — members of the fledgling Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (Dicci) — met at The Rooftop Rendezvous of Hotel Taj Mahal in south Mumbai, the evening hiring charges of which exceed Rs 5 lakh.
The launch of Dicci's Mumbai chapter, in a way, heralds the willingness of this small set to stand up and be counted among wealth creators of a new and reforming India. The deliberate choice of venue, the BMWs and limousines in the parking lot, and display of the usual trappings of wealth was to signal their 'arrival', as it were, in India's financial capital, the city of opportunities, and home to some of the most distinguished industrial groups of the country.
"We are now in the league of jobgivers," says Milind Kamble, chairman, Dicci. The congregation even found a poster boy in Rajesh Saraiya, CEO of the UK-based SteelMont, which has a turnover of about $400 million. Saraiya, a penurious youth from rural Uttar Pradesh, began his career in Ukraine as a Russian language interpreter to billionaire steel tycoon Laxmi Niwas Mittal. He eventually got into steel trading and is now one of the biggest buyers of steel from SAIL, the Indian public sector giant. Would he get into steel manufacturing, emulating his first employer?
"I have just started my India operations," he says. "It's early days; but nothing can be ruled out." CAPITAL, NOT CASTE The confidence and resolve of the bunch of Dalit entrepreneurs at the meet was infectious as they, dressed in dapper business suits and with glasses of single malt whisky, recalled their early days. The caste prejudices they confronted as struggling Dalits were, however, cast aside and not broached. "Look ahead, the future belongs to us," says Ashok Khade, managing director of the Rs 550-crore DAS Offshore Engineering. Khade employs 4,500 people, of which 152 are BTech engineers.
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