The pandemic Covid-19 has forced us to change our behavior and routine practices. It is also evident that we have been adapting to these changes. My previous write up — challenge plan ‘A’ softly directs readers especially technocrats and students seeking professional education to take up entrepreneurship as a career option. Present environment carving path to forced entrepreneurship since the entire job market in the world is shrinking. Entrepreneur is born or made is a different issue of discussion.
Here are few MTS entrepreneurship options:
Manufacturing Entrepreneurship:
- Virtually manufacturing entire import substitute products preferably using domestic resources and at lower cost than imports has abundant scope.
- Processing of agriculture raw material to add values at the farm site only.
- Tea stall serving jiggery based tea, few auyrvedic property formulations served by clean and decent person.
- Equipments for keeping sanitizer and temperature gun.
- Material handling equipments
- Supplying quality food Tiffin’s
- Milk processing plants at village or cluster village level.
- Boost up to non farm sector businesses at feeder village level.
- Small oil extraction plants — processing oil seeds at local level.
- Wineries at Sangli, Nashik district.
- Loan licensing in food sector.
- Processing on Ayurvedic property plants — aromatic oil extraction plants.
Trading Entrepreneurship:
- Virtual organizations.
- Establishing Farm to home supply chain – from rural to urban
- Processed and packaged organic vegetables — delivered online direct to customers.
- Establishing Farm dairy to home supply chain – milk and milk based products.
- Establishing supply chain to rural market – from urban to rural
- Trading on wheels – retail bazaar on wheels, food truck, flesh truck, vegetables on wheels, fruits on wheels, and evening dessert on wheels.
Service Sector Entrepreneurship:
- Training related to —– supply chain management, living safety life, social distancing and disaster management to people, basic medical education. Train to untrained in desired skills.
- Research and Development in —- New business models using online platforms, new software’s supporting online platforms,
- Consultation in — International Business, Digital Marketing, cyber crime, rural industry, market research.
- Agro based Services — entire agro based services.
- Tourism- exploration and marketing of unexplored local tourist destinations.
- Village, rural and agro tourism.
Lakhs of skilled labour, self employed people, minor entrepreneurs have migrated out of Maharashtra and also within a state. No one guarantee of their return and resume work. This has created a vacuum in the economy. The local unemployed youths have tremendous opportunity to have foothold in this vacuum. Little professional training is needed that can be provided by local management school. Somewhere the help of technical training schools like ITI and diploma colleges is also needed.
Entrepreneurship is Social Praise:
Present environment is very lucrative to take up entrepreneurship. The only thing needed is 360 degree momentum. Society has a greater role to play in it. The momentum has to be extended from educational institutions, supportive institutions, family and society.
Only four questions to answer.
- Will the parents support their kids for entrepreneurship?
- Will bureaucrats take entrepreneurship development as a philanthropic mission?
- Will a compatible girl marry with budding entrepreneur / agripreneur?
- Will a society Praise —- extent recognition to entrepreneur?
Family has to give unconditional support and be a stakeholder in the business by children. Surprisingly, youths from few business communities are not continuing traditional entrepreneurship because of not getting social support and this is quite evident from the fact that they are not getting compatible counterpart. Moreover girls do not prefer to marry with budding entrepreneur but an employee earning reasonably fat salaries and preferably stays at metropolitan society. Society also praises employees and bureaucrats only. Banners, hording and news in the dailies flashes for candidate secure employment, any kind of employment through UPSC, MPSC and such competitive examinations. Such praise has not seen towards receiving by entrepreneurs.
Supportive institutions like licensing bodies of government, financial institutions, and consultants (CA, Lawyers, Management, Taxation, Technology, R&D) should extent prime time to budding entrepreneurs. Their association with educational institution and joint efforts to motivate and support students towards entrepreneurship would bring miracles.
Entrepreneurial Education:
Unfortunately educational institutions are also not supportive towards entrepreneurship. Hardly any HEI have active ED & Incubation cell. This is the high time HEI should set up entrepreneurship and incubation center. The HEI instead of giving importance only to competitive examination centers should redirect considerable resources to entrepreneur and incubation center. Incubate the aforementioned entrepreneurial avenues and serve the nation in real sense. The role of research on finding out entrepreneurial opportunity and preparation of feasibility report is pivotal. Apex educational bodies must extend special funds to the endeavor by HEI to entrepreneurial incubation and research. The entrepreneur alumni should be given ceremonial rewards. Such alumni are better examples before students.
The positive answers to aforementioned questions would bring dream of Self reliance India come true. Mission Entrepreneurial India should be taken as missions India had taken up earlier like Green Revolution, Operation Flood and the like.