Taking the road less travelled is a courageous act, however, it is this road that leads us to unexpected and glorious destinations. One must start and then miraculously, one day, they will find themself at a crossroads with their older selves and smile at how far they have come. Rani Khan was a daily-wage stonemason and labourer.

It is farmers like Vinod Ram and their families who bear the brunt of poor land and water conditions with crop cultivation restricted to certain months of the year- leaving them without a source of income for the rest of the year. These farmers belong to various Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and are socio-economically marginalised.

Ms Suchim is a 57-year-old young-in-spirit entrepreneur. Hailing from the quaint Penkim Village, nestled in the Khongsa block of Kiphire District in Nagaland, she is a self-made woman overseeing the production of Kholar beans (an indigenous variety of kidney beans native to Nagaland). Suchim is part of the Agro Business Cluster in Nagaland which was set up by the Indian Micro Enterprises Development Foundation (IMEDF), a social enterprise- development initiative of Development Alternatives, with support of the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) under the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) in 2019.

For almost seven years Rajkumar Prajapati has been running an udayME kiosk in Niwari district, MP. Right after completing his Bachelor degree, he began seeking opportunities related to work. Like how ideas often strike at the oddest times, he received a request to assist in...

Nestled amidst the plains of a small town, Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, lives Gauhar Fatima. Mother of two and the entrepreneur behind the Rope Weaving Cluster. The cluster is a green enterprise that upcycles industrial textile waste into ropes and then weaves it into different types of furniture. This is a traditional art of the weaving community in the region and this legacy is passed down through generations and women are the keepers of this tradition.

Usha Devi a resident of Mirzapur, lives with her husband and four children. She is the only breadwinner of her family as her husband is unemployed. With the responsibility of feeding her children she got registered with MGNREGA and would get seasonal employment as a farm labour as well. Her eldest son who does odd jobs and Usha together could only make ends meet.

Anand Sahu, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh, has a family of five members who are all engaged in their respective works. Anand’s father had been running flour mill-cum-oil extraction enterprise near the local market for the last five years. During this time Anand helped his father run the business while pursuing his Master of Commerce degree, which he has now completed. But due to an unfavourable job market, he did not succeed in securing a decent job despite applying to many places.

If one listens to the challenges in Chanda Shukla’s life, it may appear that she lives a life full of gloom and misery, but that is not Chanda from Mirzapur. She is a fighter who has won over her difficult circumstances and is a proud e-rickshaw driver in her community. She lives a life of dignity and supports her family as well as her children’s education single-handedly.

A 25-year-old B.Com graduate discovered that residents of his village had limited access to accurate information and had to go to Mirzapur city for every digital service. He decided to start a Common Service Centre in his village in 2016 to assist residents in accessing digital services close to their homes. He had been considering starting an enterprise since his college days. 

Seeking a way to curb the financial challenges faced by his family, Faiyas Ali started his carpet-weaving business over a decade ago. Although he faced many ups and downs in running this business, he made sure, with his skills and hard work, that the business grew steadily. In 2017, the community business competition KaunBanega Business Leader was organised in his village, which led him to join the Work4Progress programme. Under the programme, he learned about marketing and received capacity-building training, which helped his business to grow. His business has scaled, and he currently employs 18 craftsmen permanently, who come from nearby areas.