Dalit entrepreneurs make a case for themselves
Self-made businessmen want less discrimination, greater opportunity
BY Anurag Srivastava
Delhi
Swapnil Bhingardevay runs an industrial unit and produces ethanol
which feeds into production of fuel. Currently, he has purchase orders
from all the three major oil marketing companies – Hindustan Petroleum
Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Indian Oil
Corporation Ltd – and needs working capital to get going. He can meet
the orders but for one hitch: A major bank, which he refuses to
identify, has not yet disbursed the loan for the capital despite all
the paperwork having been complete. He has a bigger reason why he has
not been given the loan – he is a Dalit.
"Even when you are a (Rs) 90 crore annual turnover industrialist, you
face the brunt of regional politics," he says. The first-generation
Dalit multimillionaire from Satara, Maharashtra, is shoulders above a
common man but at his level, he can be yet be checked from growing too
big. His might be a special case.
"It is true that having made our millions, we do not face problems
that ordinary people do," says Milind Kamble, chairman of the Dalit
Indian Chamber of Commerce (DICCI), "but there are greater limits to
entry for the Dalits in general and different types of problems at
higher levels which are caste specific."
Both were part of a DICCI delegation that on Monday met Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, to bring up
issues facing Dalit entrepreneurs.
The purpose of the chamber is to establish communication lines with
the government and to turn as many Dalits as possible into
entrepreneurs, besides safeguarding members' interests.
It wants government provision of larger chunks of finance to Dalit
entrepreneurs, starting with modifying funding schemes such as the one
from the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation,
which provides loans subject to an upper limit of Rs 5 lakh.
The key demands that the chamber made to the government was to include
Dalit entrepreneurs in priority-sector lending at special rates
through institutions such as the Small Industries Development Bank of
India and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.
The fact that there is a vibrant Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce
comprising first-generation, self-made Dalit industrialists, and the
fact that they want better opportunities for their kind, is a welcome
development, and gives a different meaning to affirmative action. It
marks progress in the sense that India Inc is not the sole preserve of
those born rich – or as upper castes.
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Posted on January 04, 2011
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