9 Rural Indians and Their Inspiring Businesses

2. Pushpa Devi Maurya

Pushpa Devi Maurya joined a self help group around ten years back so that she could help her family to meet their ends in Uttar Pradesh. Today she is a successful manager of a bulk milk chilling centre set up by the milk producers’ company near her village. The centre collects milk from 56 villages and provides on average 2000 liters of milk a day to the state’s milk grid.

Pushpa and 9,000 other women dairy producers came together and formed their own business “Swaayam Ksheer” in November 2011. Each member holds an equity stake in the company and soon hopes to take this membership to 12,000.

3. Ela Bhatt

Bihar has become a place which provides a strong base for rural women to earn their living by leasing solar bulbs to other families. And the entire credit of this achievement goes to Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and the woman behind the success of SEWA is Ela Bhatt. Ela Bhatt commenced SEWA in 1972 along with Lt. Arvind Buch. Bhatt is a renowned leader in the fields of microfinance and labour. Ela Bhatt has also been awarded the Padmashri, the Padmabhushan as well as the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

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