“I’d rather be the head of chicken than the tail of a cow” – Chinese proverb
Entrepreneurship, in the simplest sense, is the act of creating a new business where the entrepreneur is willing to take certain amount of financial risks to earn profit by way of selling his/her products, services or by creating an opportunity out of problems prevalent in an existing system/environment. Entrepreneurs turn problems into opportunities. Entrepreneurs play a key role in transforming a society, region, country, economy or the world and in solving various issues by applying their innovation, new ideas, techniques, designs, etc. For example, ride hailing Uber and Ola, while simplifying the way we book cabs, have also made the car service accessible and affordable for both rich and poor, safer and we don’t have to run here and there to find a cab. Entrepreneurs are equipped with new ideas and strategies to do things in a more efficient, productive, innovative and different way than the conventional. Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial ecosystem has tremendously impacted the economies and employment generation around the world. Governments across the world, therefore, are consciously affecting their policy reform with a view to create entrepreneurial ecosystem or to foster growth of entrepreneurship in their respective countries.
Notable entrepreneurs amongst Bodos are Tenzing Bodosa, whose tea farms have been certified as the world’s first and only elephant-friendly tea farms by Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network. There are millions of tea planters across the globe, but amongst them Tenzing Bodosa has earned a unique reputation as the owner of the world’s first and only elephant-friendly tea farms, which in fact has created a unique brand name of its own. Tenzing Bodosa is recognized worldwide and his tea products are being consumed in developed countries like UK, USA, Canada. He currently employs more than 70 people.
Similarly, at a time when almost all Bodo better off parents had lost faith in government funded Bodo medium schools due to poor success rate, UN Academy (first at Kokrajhar) came to restore the trust of Bodo parents in Bodo medium education. By establishing a quality school with Bodo as medium of instruction under private proprietorship, UN Academy not only contributed immensely in preserving the faith of Bodo language lovers by way of producing several students with excellent academic record but also generated several job avenues for others. Inspired by its astounding results, today most of the Bodo dominated areas are teeming with UN Academy franchisees.
And who hasn’t heard about or visited Bajwi chain restaurants (or hotel) in Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dudhnoi or Guwahati in Assam? Bajwi is one of the first and most successful restaurants serving Bodo cuisine. Bajwi has gradually gained traction and it has now expanded from Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar to other parts of Assam with a sizeable Bodo population and employs directly or indirectly quite a number of people.
Although these businesses are in three different categories – one in organic tea, the other in education and third in restaurant – they all have one thing in common, that is, they all identified the problem and turned the problem into opportunities for themselves and for others. Tenzing Bodosa stands out amongst millions of organic tea planters worldwide because he felt that humans do not necessarily have to displace wild animals or destroy the fragile ecosystem to run a business and that eventually became the identity of his brand and won over global customers who prefer sustainable development model. Similarly, UN Academy and Bajwi restaurant (or hotel) identified the problems and came up with solutions. UN Academy came into being to restore the trust of Bodo parents who had lost faith in the education of Bodo medium schools. Bajwi proprietors perceived that towns like Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon did not have a restaurant serving Bodo cuisine despite a large demand for Bodo cuisine. Therefore Bajwi and its chain restaurants were established to fill the noticeable vacuum. Bajwi and its chain restaurants are not only popular amongst Bodos but also popularized the Bodo cuisine amongst other peoples. Its expansion to other parts of Assam like Guwahati is not only expansion of its business but also popularization of Bodo cuisine, culture or identity.
BTR and Bodo society today are plagued with a wide range of issues and require scores of such entrepreneurial Bodos or youths who can translate those issues into opportunities for themselves, for others, for the region as a whole. With insufficient resources, it is indeed impossible for the BTR government alone to fix these issues within a given timeframe. But what the BTR government can do is to create the requisite ecosystem for MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) or start-ups to draw on people’s capacity to solve these issues using their creativity, imagination and skill set. Without government’s initiative and policy direction, the entrepreneurial culture/mindset or ecosystem is not going to come into being on a larger scale. BTR and Bodo society today urgently require policies that affect social values, attitudes and collective thinking towards creating entrepreneurial mindset or ecosystem. Entrepreneurship development should be one of the top priorities or agenda of all political parties and the government in the region. Governments worldwide today are resorting to encouraging entrepreneurship through legal, monetary, fiscal policy reforms to keep up their competitors at bay or to stay ahead of global pace of innovation. World’s economic and technology superpowers like US and China not only have one of the most advanced start-up ecosystems but also have the largest number of entrepreneurs that outnumbers that of other countries to a great extent. Creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem out of the scratch is not a cake walk and especially harder for resource and infrastructure deficit region like BTR. It’s indeed a fact that we are not in a position yet to create Silicon Valley, London, New York, Beijing or even Bangalore like entrepreneurial ecosystem and the purpose of this write-up is not to unrealistically urge the BTR govt to create an ecosystem that is the centre of national/global innovation. We do not have strong venture capitalists, quality workforce, culture, and support system to create an innovation hub. But it’s a fact that we have enough capacity to create small scale enterprises that are successful at local level. We only need political will or determination, conscious planning, policy direction, effective utilization of the available resources and identification of sectors for prioritization. With the planned involvement of government, BTR can create hundreds of local entrepreneurs like UN Academy, Bajwi or Tenzing Bodosa in various sectors. Thanks to the BTC government, the Council can now boast of a certain level of basic infrastructural development and is already at a certain level of socio-economic development. But there is no room for complacency in socio-economic progress. The government must now focus on the development and improvement of the key infrastructures that are the major prerequisites of an entrepreneurial ecosystem – entrepreneur friendly policy, finance & funding (venture capitals, incubators, angel investment, crowd funding, etc), quality education and skill development, culture, support system, and markets. However, some of the reforms might take decades to bear fruit. In such a scenario, BTC or BTR government can resort to stopgap strategy to meet the urgent requirement for critical infrastructures like incubator, board of mentors to assist the new, budding and aspiring entrepreneurs. BTC or BTR can also act as bridge or catalyst to assist new and existing micro and small entrepreneurs in availing the opportunities provided by various schemes of Central government. That way BTC or BTR government will not have to start the ecosystem from scratch and will also make optimum utilization of the Central funds made available through various schemes under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Skilled youths in the region meanwhile can on their own avail the benefits provided by GoI and the Ministry of MSMEs through various schemes for the existing and new small scale entrepreneurs. Indian MSME sector contributes over 29% of the total GDP of India and remains a critical source of employment. Union Minister for MSME Nitin Gadkari has a vision to increase the MSMEs’ contribution to India’s GDP to over 50%. MSME sector may therefore gain significant amount of focus from the Central government in the coming years which will open up scores of opportunities at grass root level. GoI already has a number of schemes in place to promote MSMEs. Skilled youths in BTR, who are living with great business ideas and nurturing a dream to start a micro or small enterprise but have been prevented from doing so due to lack of access to capital and other logistics, can apply for business loans (term loan/ working capital loan) through ‘MSME Business Loans in 59 Minutes’ portal www.psbloansin59minutes.com launched by the Former Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in 2018. Both new and existing enterprises can utilize the scheme to avail financial assistance upto 5 crore rupees. Another popular business loan scheme being offered by the Central government to the non-corporate, non-farm small and micro enterprises is MUDRA (Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd) loan under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY). Under this scheme, both new and existing enterprises can avail business loans upto 10 lakh rupees without providing any collateral or security. Women entrepreneurs can even avail lower interest rate. Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, in collaboration with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), established a Trust – Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) – to implement Credit Guarantee Scheme for Micro and Small Enterprises. Under this scheme, eligible new or existing enterprises can avail collateral free business loan upto 1 crore rupees. Various schemes of National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), which has been working to promote, aid and foster growth of MSMEs in the country, can facilitate meeting the credit requirements – financing raw material procurement and marketing activities -, technology support, and various other logistic support. These are just a few of the schemes introduced by the Central government to promote, facilitate and support MSMEs. It is upto the ambitious youths with requisite skills, dreams and passion to come forward, avail the facilities to create and own an enterprise to be his/her own boss and to simultaneously eradicate socio-economic backwardness and problems of the region.
However, purpose of this write-up is not to draw a rosy picture of entrepreneurial journey. Entrepreneurship is full of ups and downs and most often businesses may entirely fail. But what differentiates successful entrepreneurs from the majority entrepreneurs, who fail, is how they deal with such situation or failures. Successful entrepreneurs do not collapse because of one failure. They use the failures as opportunities to become wiser, smarter and to evaluate what went wrong or what can go wrong in future, which may become tools for success in future. In business they say “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” – do not put in all your resources, expectations, etc in one project. If you have the skills, imagination, passion and determination to create and to succeed, if you have strong emotional and mental tenacity, take well informed and professional advice from the mentors, go ahead and set up your dream enterprise – sky is the only limit. Don’t waste your time looking for a job if following somebody’s instruction is not in your blood, if you do not want to be somebody’s SERVANT, then be your own boss. There’s a proverb in Chinese – “I’d rather be the head of chicken than the tail of a cow”. This is the attitude Bodo society and BTR require now the most.
