Dalit Entrepreneurs, The Next Big Thing In Indian Eco System
From emptiness, hunger and poverty with distant dreams to millionaires of today, these entrepreneurs have a say to what they have borne through in the past. Rajendra Gaidwad, founder of GT Pest Control, who is 50 now says, “I didn’t have chappals to walk to school in. A bicycle was a distant dream.” Rajendra’s family had to endure insults for many years. They were even refused food at public functions. But the founder has seen a revolution in life now. He drives a BMW and lives at his home, the 17th floor of a high rise building. He has started another company that makes conveyor belts and is yet to see a lump sum of revenue this year.
But how many fared well ? According to Surinder Jodhka, who had conducted an ethnographic survey of Panipat and Saharanpur, found that most dalit enterprises established there were self run. They were basic businesses like carpentry and shopping. Hotels and factories constituted a percent or two over there.
Bank loans could be affordable to another first generation entrepreneurs aged between 20 and 40. Jodhka’s findings were further reinforced by a study done by Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University, Lakshmi Iyer and Tarun Khanna of Harvard University where they revealed that Schedule Castes (SCs)owned 9.8 percent of all the 42 million enterprises employing around 99 million workers in 2005, which was below 16.4 percent of the total population.
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