Diary of a Rural Manager!

Food & agro enterprises are built around post‑harvest value addition —everything that happens after produce leaves the farm: sorting/grading, storage, transport, processing, packaging, marketing, and quality compliance . The “scheme-ready” first step: Udyam Registration (free, paperless) - Most MSME benefits begin with formal recognition via Udyam Registration , which is free, online, and is the Government’s official MSME registration portal. Stage‑by‑Stage Scheme Picker (Integrated: MoA&FW + MoMSME + MoFPI) Stage 1 — Farm‑Gate Sorting/Grading & First Handling:  This stage reduces rejection and prepares produce for storage or processing. Best‑fit programs ISAM (Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing) : Official guidelines describe ISAM as a framework to strengthen agri marketing systems and include components like marketing infrastructure and related support mechanisms.  MIDH (Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture) : Operational guidelines ...

I was reading yesterday an article by Mr. Sanjiv Phansalkar: What stops rural enterprises from growth and prosperity? . Mr. Sanjiv Phansalkar has written a good article but I find the article quite limited in explaining the scenario. The factors contributing to the failure among rural enterprises as per him are: Lifestyle obstruction, Modes of thinking, Sticking to schedules and Patterns of living. I propose ten better reasons on what stops rural enterprises from growth and prosperity. I have referred rural enterprises as micro-enterprises at several places in the current article. 1. Rural Enterprise Sector: Rural enterprises works in the segment where entry barriers are low and it is easy for these new entrants to enter the market. This poses a threat to the micro-enterprises already competing in that market. With an easy entry, all micro-enterprise tends to produce identical or nearly identical products – both in terms of quality and design, without offering significant product ...

Social Entrepreneurship movement is considered as next big thing and start ups of the development sector. The time needed to solve the social issues is vast, but thanks to the social enterprise movement, these issues are finally being fixed using sustainable business models and market forces. One of the most important tasks for the entrepreneur is to gain clarity about customers’ needs and willingness to pay. This helps in establishing a sustainable business model and create social impact alongside profits for external shareholders. That makes the social entrepreneur different from persons involved with Charity, For Profit Business and Government. I will quote these three articles as a source of my brief understanding: Dream Bigger, Plan Better: 7 Tips to Keep in Mind Before Starting a Social Enterprise Is social enterprise becoming a reactionary force? If the Goal is Scale, Promote Theft I attended a lecture on Mr S K Shelgikar on 25th November 2017. Mr S K Shelgikar, Advis...

The informal economy in India is run by entrepreneurs providing products and services to the customers. These low-skilled occupations require low financial investments and thus have a relatively low threshold for entering. The street vendors have created a carefully constructed beehive of economic activity in the public space. They have created a functional system for themselves without waiting for government to provide them the legal permission, space and subsidy. In the series of street entrepreneurs ( first part ), I am presenting here a blog post by Anishok Mishra from the 2016-18 batch of XIMB: The Cost behind the Taste - The Chaiwalas of Bhubaneswar . Tea, or as we fondly call it "Chai" is one of India's most preferred hot beverages. Almost every person in our country has had a sip of this drink once in their lifetimes. Some prefer it black, some with milk, some with a splash of lemon and those looking to get healthier by drinking it prefer it "Green...

India’s most enduring heritage since independence is poverty. Poverty can't be fought by throwing doles and subsidy in the name of government schemes. It can only be done by creating suitable ecosystem for innovative and risk taking individuals. These persons need not to be engineering and management college students. A street vendor with no education is taking more risk and still pursing business is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is more prevalent and still damn difficult to pursue for people working in unorganised sector. A NCEUS report estimates that in 2005 out of the 485 million persons employed in India, 86 percent or 395 million worked in the unorganised sector, generating 50.6 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. Someone once told me to understand how businesses runs, interact with an entrepreneur, even if it is a pawn shop. I didn't get the point back then. Once in the college, I had read few chapters of book Grassroots entrepreneurship : entrepren...

Inir Pinheiro is a MBA in Rural Management from XIMB of 2004 – 2006 batch. He skipped placement offers to start up his own company, Grassroutes. Grassroutes is based on the concept of responsible rural tourism wherein tourism is run, managed and owned by local village communities. Today, it is a sustainable and profit making venture transforming unknown small villages, near the metros, into viable tourist destinations; sustainable for him and giving livelihood opportunities to the villagers. There is enough Media Coverage of this rural tourism venture. The best part in his story that he is a "typical city boy", born and brought up in Mumbai. Inir learnt about the realities of village India much later. Inir proves that one need not to belong to villages to work in rural areas. He described once his work in the words of Regina Spektor - “It started out as a feeling, Which then grew into a hope, Which then turned into a quiet thought, Which then turned into a qu...