Indigenous Brigade-The startups during COVID 19

-Monikangkan Barooah |

It is hard to beat a person who never gives up. Defying all odds, the startup ventures by the indigenous brigade have gained momentum and become success stories for the rest to follow.

Achievements of the young entrepreneurs are an inspiration to many educated unemployed youth in Assam and the northeast to explore new innovative ideas and become self-reliant. India needs 100 million new jobs by 2026 for country’s growth. Such a gigantic target cannot solely be achieved through existing jobs or business as usual, but only through creating self-employment and entrepreneurship-driven employment.

This is in this context the spirit of these young entrepreneurs and their successful ventures during lockdown period are to saluted. Each of their works would require a book form, to explain to the readers of their journey so far. However, an attempt has been made to write a few lines about them.

1. Gaurav Medhi and Drishti Medhi , QuickGhy, a startup engaged in utility services. During pandemic period , they provided excellent services to the house hold and even took the risk to senitizes the residence of Covid patients, flats , etc .

2. Mukul Barma and Jintirani Deka , Quickfix, a startup , engaged in utility services and provided services to the guwahatians as well, during pandemic period.

3. Jehirul Islam, CEO of MJI Agarwood Research and Development, engaged to promote Agarwood (Acquilaria malaccensis ) cultivation and processing in Assam and NER. Recently , he is in association of technical collaboration with IIT Guwahati and IIT Delhi , successfully established the efficient steam distillation process for abstraction of Agar wood oil. During pandemic , he was instrumental to distribute 1200 agarwood plants in Golaghat district in association with Rotary Club, Dispur.

4. Kashmiri Borkakati Nath , KATA Food, is a self-taught Chef with a national repute. She started her career more than 25 years back as a free launcher, having expertise in Assamese Cuisine and baking and tried to promote it in all over India. She was frequently invited by five star Hotels and top restaurants across India to curate their menus. She was the recipient of prestigious Goldman Sachs 10000 women entrepreneurial programme at ISB , Hyderabad. During pandemic she started her Startup KN Order- for bakery and KATA Food . KATA Food is ready-to-cook , fresh and pre marinated chicken prepared with hygienic condition. Teriyaki Chicken wings, BBQ Smoked drumstick, Creamy Afghani Murg, Awadi Chicken Korma and Chicken Tikka masala, are the major range of products now available under KATA Food.

5. Subhalakkshmi Kataky, D Jonaks a ‘Home Maker’ turned ‘Home Baker’ , she turned the disaster into opportunity, by starting her enterprise ‘D JONAKs’- the essence of happiness at Guwahati during the lockdown period. During this unprecedented hour of crisis , a home maker was highly impressed with the clarion call “Aapda ko avsar mein badal dalon” made by Prime Minister Narendra Modiji.

6. Kushal Deka , URBAN Protein, a progressive farmer of Darrang district. During the lock down period , with the permission from District Administration of Kamrup (M), Darrang and in association with farmer Dhurbajyoti Saikia, he started selling Mutton , Chicken meat, local organic vegetables, and many more through home delivery under the name of “Urban Protein”. Around 70 young people of his locality employed in this job and had a tremendous responses from the buyers during that period.

7. Uttam Teron and Aimoni Tumung, Parijat Academy, started a school called Parijat Acdemy way back in 2003 at Pamohi in the outskirt of Guwahati for under privilege children of Pamohi area. These students belong to families of daily wage earners, rickshaw puller, workers of brick fields, stone query, industries, etc. There are about 550 students now in their school, from class KG to 10th standard. The school functions through donation from various charitable organizations. Aimoni is known as Pad Women of Assam. During pandemic , they started a Handloom unit as a startup venture and gaining ground defying all odds. The venture have employed local girls who in tern provides training to newly recruited people.

8. Phanindra Pradhan, DK Asomi Artisan, Gohpur. He was one of the first person to make Masks from Assamese traditional cotton Gamocha during the Covid-19 pandemic. His initiative was widely appreciated by the media and people , as the medicated masks were not available in the initial period of the ill fated pandemic. He started the experiment and after that many entrepreneurs of Assam took up similar ventures. A large number of people use and benefited from such kind of local mask , which is beautiful in look at , is cost effective and durable .

9. Ms. Day Deep Chetia and Mr. Upal JB , together gifted us “Let’s Learn Together” an App ( LLT- online community for competitive exam) dedicated to our youth to make them prepare for various competitive Examinations like APSC, Bank , etc. The idea is big, the aim is to cover more and more, but at an affordable cost. This is a learning management App , and very popular one in Assam. During pandemic , they provided online classes to their members, schools and also developed a senitizer instrument for non living articles.

10. David Gogoi, Rupam Choudhury and Mousam Talukdar , “Zerund Brick” – a startup, is a green product , promoted by these three engineers . Zerund Brick is known as “Plastic Embedded lightweight Brick”- an innovative product. A patented brick of M/S Zerund Manufacturing Pvt Ltd, is promoted by these three Engineers . It was a class room project at 7th Semester, but grew into a real commercial project in July 2018 .

A sophisticated building material started in July, 2018 with an initial annual capacity of 10000 cubic mtr at Azara, Guwahati and increase to 10 to 12 lakh bricks per annum by putting up another unit at Bongaigaon. Zerund Bricks is environmental friendly due to zero emission of gas and zero pollution , it is light weight, easy to install with no weather effect , is earthquake resistance , has thermal and sound insulation, provides pest and fire resistance.

In a unique initiative to encourage and inspire the the startups, Rotary club of Dispur, synchronizing with the visit of District Governor of Rotary International District 3240 on Sunday, i.e. 21st February 2021, offered felicitation to the The Indigenous startup brigade of the state who made a tremendous contributions to the society during the the lockdown period.