From rags-to-riches...

AHMEDABAD..

Maltiben Chaudhary can barely speak English or Hindi, has studied only up to Class IV and belongs to a remote village, Pratapur, in Mehsana district of Gujarat.

But, the money spinners of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) were all ears to her rags-to-riches story when she visited the institute.

Maltiben, 62, runs a successful milk business as part of the Mehsana Milk Cooperative, Gujarat, and earns a cool Rs 80,000 a month. The students of IIM-A's flagship postgraduate programme (PGP) and one-year executive course were engrossed in her exemplary lecture on entrepreneurial skills during 'Understanding creativity, innovation knowledge network and entrepreneurship' programme on Wednesday.

"Her entrepreneurship attitude was quite visible and she had an authority in her voice while speaking on the subject. Innovation and knowledge is not only a prerogative of rich and educated, knowledge also lies at the bottom of the pyramid, "said Kumar Rahul Roushan, final year student of PGP.

Maltiben said,"Due to financial constraints in my family, I thought of doing something on my own but at that time I did not have any money to start a business. I stitched clothes for village women and saved a meagre Rs 80. I bought two famished buffaloes from the money way back in 1971 and started a milk business."

I fed the buffaloes nutritious fodder, Maltiben said. And to everbody's surprise, the buffaloes won the first prize during a Doodhsagar dairy rally in Mehsana, giving 29 litres of milk a day.

Then on, Maltiben never looked back. She now supplies 300 litres of milk daily to milk cooperative.


News Clip Courtesy: Kumar Manish