http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/cii-members-to-stepsourcingdalit-owned-smes/442322/CII members to step up sourcing from Dalit-owned SMEs
T E Narasimhan / Chennai July 12, 2011, 0:45 IST
The organisation has trained 6,122 Dalit and tribal youths in
entrepreneurship development.
The Confederation of Indian Industry's move to encourage its members
to increase sourcing of goods and services from Dalit and Scheduled
Tribe (ST) entrepreneurs is set to make the two communities
entrepreneurially more vibrant.
To increase the number of entrepreneurs in the country, CII has
suggested to its members that they step up sourcing from Dalit
entrepreneurs. Milind Kamble, chairman of the Dalit Indian Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (Dicci), said some CII members, including Tata
Motors, have already started sourcing from Dicci members.
CII has trained 6,122 Dalit and tribal youths in entrepreneurship
development through various initiatives. Besides, it recently tied up
with Dicci, which has a membership of about 1,000 entrepreneurs from
the Dalit community.
Tata Steel Vice-Chairman and CII President B Muthuraman said the
industry chamber will work closely with the Dalit community to provide
them with a chance to participate in economic growth opportunities.
CII Affirmative Action Initiatives will focus on how to create more
employment and make people employable by improving their skills, and
how to develop more Dalit entrepreneurs.
CII is organising regular awareness programmes throughout the country
to promote greater inclusion of Dalits and STs in the private sector,
assisting multinational and Indian member companies to achieve greater
representation for Dalits and STs in new recruitment at all levels and
strengthening member companies' HR systems to enhance access and
opportunity to Dalit and ST applicants with equal qualification and
competence.
CII is also working with member companies to set up mechanisms to
track the composition of its members' workforce, and specifically, the
numbers of Dalits and STs employed. It has set a target of training
50,000 youngsters from among Dalits and STs and helping an equal
number of them gain employment in the year 2011-12.
Dicci's members are spread across industries such as food, engineering
and infrastructure, and its motto is, "We want to be job givers, not
job seekers," Kamble said.
Dicci comprises first-generation, self-made Dalit industrialists, and
they want better opportunities for their kind. They want to prove that
India Inc is not the sole preserve of those born rich — or as upper
castes.
"We have a member whose turnover is around Rs 25 lakh and a member
whose company clocked revenues of around Rs 1,800 crore," said Kamble.
"Our community members want to grow, but it is not easy to find
someone to lend them money to start a unit," he said, because Dalits
owned virtually no land or other assets. The search for funding to
start a business usually took members of the community to private
lenders, he added.
The community has a few entrepreneurial success stories. According to
Dicci, there are about 30 members who are crorepatis. The list
includes Ashok Khade, chairman, Das Offshore Pvt Ltd, who presides
over a business empire that is worth Rs 550 crore; Natha Ram, who runs
Steelmont Pvt Ltd, a Rs 600 crore company that makes steel converter
machines; and Devjibhai Makwana, the owner of Suraj Filament, a Rs 300
crore company that makes flat and twisted high-tenacity polypropylene
multi-filament yarns.
"These successes have not come easily, they came after years of
fighting a system which is designed to keep Dalits out," added Chandra
Bhan Prasad, a columnist representing this community. Trade and
enterprise have never been part of the community's tradition; the only
trade traditionally linked with Dalits is leather work, he noted.
Dalits are not discriminated against in business, but they need
support in terms of training, identification of market opportunities
and financial help, and to provide this is Dicci's aim, added Kamble.
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