MBA Farmer and NeeRain

Dear Reader,

We all know it is troublesome not to have access to tap water. The unscheduled water cuts in metros that most municipalities resort to at the peak of summer always make newspaper headlines. But far from the glitz of big cities, our smaller towns and villages still grapple with water shortage for most part of the year.

Reckless use of borewells has led to a drastic reduction in the water table, and the lack of pipelines makes water inaccessible to crores of people even today. One of them was Amit Doshi. When he was in class four, he would accompany his mother to the public tap in their locality in Kalol, about 35 km from Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

While his mother would carry the large bucket, he would drag the smaller one. His father also did the rounds to fill the family’s water drum before going to the office, writes my colleague Partho. Today, over three decades later, Amit’s rainwater harvesting startup NeeRain Pvt Ltd has helped save over 125 billion litres of water in seven countries. His annual revenue stood at Rs2 crore last fiscal. How this plastic engineer developed the rainwater harvesting device and patented it before going global is all part of the story. Do read it.

Last week, my colleague Aruna wrote an inspiring story which combines women's empowerment with the goodness of traditional and healthy foods. She spoke to Kalyani Chavali, the 24-year-old chemical engineer who decided to become a food entrepreneur instead of mixing chemicals to make gasoline or detergents.

Kalyani’s Sahrudaya Foods in Pune makes sweets and snacks using natural ingredients and traditional recipes, some of which are 500 years old. She has also trained 160 rural women in food processing and sells her products in many countries including India.

Though Kalyani uses her chemical engineering knowledge in fine-tuning recipes to make the products more nutritious, she is still among the many young people working in areas unrelated to their academic background. For some, the desire to bring about social change makes them move away from their degree, and for others, the need to continue their family occupation takes them back to their roots.

Something similar happened with Kabir Chandrakar, who completed his MBA in Corporate Finance from the University of Chester, UK, in 2014 and got back home in Chhattisgarh. Over the next few years, he converted his family’s 45-acre paddy and vegetable farm into a guava orchard and scripted a farming success story by earning Rs 2.5 crore in revenues last year. That’s not all. He told me he is eyeing a revenue of over Rs3 crore this year. MBA plus farming is quite a potent combo, I guess.

Our Sunday feature is an ode to rural women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs face multiple challenges and they are compounded if the founder is from a rural area. We have put together stories of five rural women entrepreneurs who worked despite all odds to create successful businesses.

In the Money section, Karan has written that a growing risk to the global and Indian economy from geopolitical tensions makes large-cap funds a good investment option right now. He has listed the top 10 of these mutual funds.

Happy Reading!

Warmly,

Rashmi