Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li><keyword id="12512340" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jaswantiben-Jamnadas-Popat" source="Orion">Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat</keyword> was conferred the Padma Shri award on Tuesday.</li><li>She is one of the founders of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad.</li><li>Jaswantiben began her journey with an investment of ₹80 along with six of her friends.</li></ul>On March 15, 1959, Jaswantiben along with six of her friends met on a terrace in Girgaum, Maharashtra and started making papads, using a sum of ₹80, which were <a href="http://www.lijjat.com/Organisation/TheBeginning.aspx">borrowed</a> from Chhaganlal Karamshi Parekh, a social worker. Today, the brand is called Lijjat Papad, and it has grown to be a ₹1,600 crore business with 81 branches and employs over 45,000 women across the country, all of whom are considered co-owners in the enterprise. Recognising her journey, the Indian government gave the Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian award in the country, to the 91-year old entrepreneur. While most people may not recognise her by name, it is unlikely that you are unfamiliar with her product. If you are someone who watched television during the 90s, you will probably remember the popular Lijjat Papad jingle with a hand puppet bunny chomping on crispy papad. <div type="Youtube" id="lSYMX6PmT34" title="Lijjat Papad Commercial - Doordarshan Ad/ Commercial from the 80's &amp; 90's - pOphOrn" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lSYMX6PmT34/mqdefault.jpg"></div> <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="A humble beginning" comment="subhead" text="A humble beginning">A humble beginning</cmsannotation> Jaswantiben, who hails from Mumbai’s now affluent Girgaum area, began her journey as an entrepreneur to contribute towards her family’s income. While she did not have any knowledge about running a business, her hard work and courage allowed her to start this venture. She started making papads with Parvatiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben. N. Tanna, Laguben Amritlal Gokani, Jayaben V. Vithalani, and Chutadben Amish Gawadem. “Making papads does not require education, which is why we started Lijjat,” Jasnatiben says in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSz27aGjqog">interview</a>. “Everyone here is a partner and does not work for any other person, which was one of the factors that enabled women to join at the beginning,” she adds. <div type="image" title="Lijjat Papad" msid="87648084" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Lijjat Papad&amp;#39;s logo.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> “We do not require anyone to pay money, we do not check their caste or religion or do any background checks while adding a partner, where else will you find such a partnership business,” asks Jaswantiben. The group first made a batch of four packets of papads, which were sold to a businessman. Soon after that, the group increased from seven members to twenty-five and later the group registered as Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad and in 1962, it was renamed to Lijjat Papad. The papads are sold across the country and even exported to countries like the United States, Singapore, United Kingdom, Thailand and Netherlands among others. Not just papads, now Lijjat also sells masalas, atta, chapati and even detergent. The organisation has also had its share of failures, such as cottage leather, match sticks and incense sticks, which had to be shut down. “The credit of Lijjat Papad goes to every woman working here. This recognition is the fruit of their hard work,” Jaswantiben said while speaking to <a href="https://www.shethepeople.tv/top-stories/inspiration/jaswantiben-jamnadas-popat-lijjat-papad/">SheThePeople</a> after being awarded the Padma Shri. Jaswantiben-led Lijjat Papad believes in the principle of self-reliance and does not accept any donations or contributions. To ensure that the members do not lose out on employment, the company does not use machines and till date rolls the papads using hands despite making over 4.5 billion papads each year. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Equal profits" comment="subhead" text="Equal profits">Equal profits</cmsannotation> Every woman that joins Lijjat is called a Lijjat Ben (Sister) and is given equal share in the profits. Jyoti Naik, the former president of Lijjat Papad during an <a href="https://www.rediff.com/money/2005/apr/15spec.htm">interview</a> had revealed that Lijjat’s committee consisting of 21 members decides how profits are to be distributed. “Even a ben who has recently joined gets the same share as others who have been with us longer,” she said. The profits are usually distributed by purchasing gold coins -- either 5 grams or 10 grams, depending on the profit. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/sanjiv-goenka-makes-a-billion-dollar-comeback-to-the-worlds-biggest-t20-stage/articleshow/87277384.cms">Sanjiv Goenka makes a billion dollar comeback to the world's biggest T20 stage</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/nethra-kumanan-the-first-woman-sailor-from-india-to-qualify-for-the-olympics/articleshow/81984720.cms">Meet Nethra Kumanan — the first woman sailor from India to qualify for the Olympics with a love for Bharatnatyam</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/freshworks-ceo-girish-mathrubootham-shares-someone-said-i-will-be-nothing-but-a-rickshaw-puller/articleshow/86507840.cms">WATCH: "Someone said I am good enough to be a rickshaw puller," shares Freshworks CEO Girish Mathrubootham in a candid chat</a>

The 91-year old woman behind India’s most famous papad brand gets the fourth highest civilian honour ⁠— she started with ₹80

The first woman entrepreneur I knew was my neighbour who started a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papadum">papad</a> manufacturing business in the early 90s. I remember my mother being in awe of her and did her best to help out the budding entrepreneur. 
 
But that was the 90s and these entrepreneurs were never glorified or talked about in the media. Even the choices for women in India were limited – most enterprising women built home-based businesses. 
 
Over the turn of the millennium, a lot of businesses based on the distribution model were popularized, and empowered women too. Every other person you met was either an Amway or Oriflame distributor. 
 
Fast forward a few years and we have women rocking the proverbial boat by trying their hands on so-called “male-dominated” businesses. 
 
Let me introduce here six phenomenal ladies who rule the Indian startup scene with their disruptive ideas. From software developer to recruiter, from a woman who travelled alone for days on end surveying small city hotels to one whose mission is to pamper other Indian women, they have been there, done that and aren’t slowing down anytime soon. 
 
Of course, we’ll talk about their work (and companies), which speaks for itself. 
 
<a href="http://www.posist.com/">POSist</a> 
POSist is a Cloud-based restaurant management software that automates almost all restaurant operations, including online reservation, inventory management, and billing. It covers every single need of all types and sizes of food outlets. 
 
 
 
The idea for POSist came to Sakshi Tulsian when she and her husband couldn’t find good software for their own restaurant venture. As most good business ideas are designed to fill a void, POSist too was conceived to fill the demand-supply gap for decent hotel management software. 
Thanking her family for supporting her in realizing her dreams, Tulsian says that women in our society are expected to be all-rounders and create a balance between social and professional life, unlike men. This is the toughest part of being a woman entrepreneur. 
Our next entrepreneur too struggled with work-life balance after her first child was born. 
 
<a href="http://www.designnbuy.com/">Design ‘N’ Buy</a> 
Design ‘N’ Buy provides high-end ecommerce software solutions for B2B and B2C companies such as print service providers, trade printers, and distributors. Remember the time you got cool personalized messages on a t-shirt or mug? Design ‘N’ Buy builds web-to-print software to empower corporate websites to automate that. 
 
 
 
You can get a tailored web-to-print solution to design caps, t-shirts, banners, posters, greetings, mobile covers, and much more. Phew! You just need to plug in this printing and designing software to your website and you’re set. 
 
The idea behind Design ‘N’ Buy came to Nidhi Agarwal, a quintessential small town girl who overcame all obstacles, from learning English to mastering open source technologies, to actualize her dream. Today she is heading a 30+ team with over 500 projects to her credit. 
Design ‘N’ Buy is already ruling the personalized merchandise scene in the US with 80% of their clientele coming from California, Texas, Florida and New York. Nidhi has built a woman-centric team, because early in the game she understood the women’s potential and ability to multi-task with ease. 
 
This is an important lesson for all startups, not only in India, but across the world. Keep your workforce talent as diverse as possible by hiring people across ages, genders, races and backgrounds. 
 
<a href="http://vtestcorp.com/">VTest</a> 
VTest provides software testing services accompanied by detailed test reports and a digital certificate. Their business is restricted only to testing, a niche software development pain point. 
 
Director and COO Almas Khan started out in the recruitment field, but grew increasingly interested in tech. In the middle of a few life changing scenarios and a break from work, she found herself sitting at home, doing nothing. Initially, she did testing pro-bono for a friend. Soon, she realized this was what she wanted to do, and VTest was born. With her USP of focusing on “what not to do” VTest has made major inroads towards becoming a major player in the app testing business. 
 
<a href="http://www.vistarooms.com/">Vista Rooms</a> 
Vista Rooms is a niche business that offers low-cost luxury accommodation in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India. Launched in April 2015, their website now offers stays in more than 70 cities and over 500 hotels. 
 
 
 
Theirs is a budget business model; so, they are leveraging existing platforms instead of making heavy investments unlike competitors. For instance, instead of creating a standalone app, they created a complete app experience on Instagram that allows everything from browsing to booking, to sharing reviews. 
 
Co-founder Ankita Sheth travelled for one and a half month to various small cities and experienced the true horrors of bad hospitability. Slowly but surely, she and her partners put together a plan for offering standardized hospitality and making pleasant budget travel a reality in India. 
 
Entrepreneurs can take two lessons from this startup. First, instead of hiring people to do research and listening to second-hand reports, devote time to check the ground reality on your own. Secondly, in the initial years, try to make your startup as lean as possible by cashing in on existing platforms as opposed to building new ones. 
 
<a href="http://www.sugarbox.in/">Sugarbox</a> 
Sugarbox is a gift subscription service, a first of its kind service in India that allows women to indulge themselves (hint, hint, husbands). All you need to do is subscribe, and you’ll get gifts – which could be fashion, beauty, lifestyle and gourmet products – handpicked by in-house stylists every month. That’s not all, you don’t know what your box contains is until it is delivered. Every month, Sugarbox has a new theme for the goodies. 
 
 
 
It’s been barely over a year since Niharika Jhunjhunwala started Sugarbox, but the business is doing pretty well with 30-40% month-on-month subscription growth. 
 
Niharika feels extremely happy about being able to spoil women, and now that she has cornered the market in metro cities, she is looking forward to capture a slice of Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. 
 
<a href="http://www.alwayswithyou.co.in/">With You</a> 
Although the idea of this startup is a little morbid, it is beyond doubt one of the most disruptive ideas in a very long time. A website to leave a message for your loved ones after your death, in a country like India, seems as strange to us as the idea of snake charmers to the west. 
 
Nevertheless, Vedika Goel went on and gave shape to this thoughtful idea, and created With You. So many things happen today – heart attacks, accidents, etc. – that snatch away lives and worlds in a fleeting moment. With You allows you to leave messages for your loved ones – it might be a secret that you don’t want to take to your grave, a financial will, or just that “I love you” that you never got around to saying. 
 
Vedika calls it the insurance of emotions; saying that her venture takes care of the emotions of people that are left behind when someone passes away. 
 
The most important lesson to learn from the last two startups is to pursue your dream, no matter how disruptive, small or whacky it may seem at the outset. 
 
All In All, 
If you’re a male entrepreneur, look to your female counterparts to inspiration and how to walk the tightrope of work-life balance. Further, 
· Keep your workforce as diverse as possible 
· Make a “not-to-do list” 
· Keep your startup lean 
· Think different, think disruptive 
If you’re a female entrepreneur, Kudos to you! 
 
(This article is written by Rohan Ayyar, who is a startup-focused marketer involved in creative content strategy, web analytics, and conversion optimization at E2M, a premium digital marketing firm. He’s also an avid writer in the business and tech space, with articles featured on Fast Company, Entrepreneur Mag and The Next Web. Follow him on Twitter @searchrook) 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

6 successful women entrepreneurs
who rock the Indian startup scene

The recent predictions of <keyword id="6366970" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="IMD">IMD</keyword> (<keyword id="55209" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Meteorological-Department">Indian Meteorological Department</keyword>) have had a ‘butterfly effect’ on India’s socio-economic policy landscape. The capital markets have tumbled primarily due to a cautioned 25 basis point reduction in the repo rate by the Reserve <keyword id="6355303" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bank-of-India">Bank of India</keyword> (RBI). The move by RBI considered many factors among which the announcement by the IMD that India is heading for the second consecutive year of deficient rainfall had an influence. The fear of <keyword id="67286" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Food-inflation">food inflation</keyword> lead the Finance Minister to comment on June 4, 2015 that the impact of deficient rains may not have a significant bearing on food grain production. He clarified this was due to the geographical distribution of the coming monsoon. The broader issue remains that <keyword id="235059" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Agriculture">Indian agriculture</keyword> is still dependent heavily on monsoons for agriculture. Three points merit attention with respect to the agriculture sector in India. 
 First, Indian agriculture remains labour intensive (thus providing employment to roughly half the population) and with a lack of appropriate infrastructure strategy. Often the interventions made in rivers/ for irrigation are knee jerk reactions to local developmental needs in contrast to a national strategy required for irrigational development across India. More often than not there are delays in infrastructure development, and it severely undermines the pace of not only agricultural growth but means of sustenance to farmers. It means that the farmers at most times are left to the mercy of rain gods rather than appropriate water harvesting and storage techniques for his/her agricultural produce. It drastically increases the risks of crop failure. Innovative schemes for canals/water harvesting like the solar farm mounted on the top of a canal in Gujarat could bring dual benefits of <keyword id="1710483" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="water-preservation">water preservation</keyword> as well as electricity critical for the agricultural sector. 
 Second, moving down in the agricultural value chain one observes there is a lack of formal market access, formal means of finance and inhibition to technology utilization that has driven farmers to suicides. Farmers are often left to borrow from informal sources like moneylenders who lend at exorbitant rates that often leads to a debt trap for farmers. Inhibition to technology usage (with respect to <keyword id="6386447" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Farming">farming</keyword> methods as well as seeds is prevalent in some parts. One observes it even in the government storage facilities under its <keyword id="107125" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Food-Corporation">Food Corporation</keyword> of India (FCI). An estimated 40% of the India’s agricultural output by value is left to rot due to lack of adequate storage facilities. On the one hand, India suffers from chronic malnutrition (roughly one out of every four children is undernourished) and fares poorly (55th in 2014) on Global Hunger Index. On the other hand it continues to let the foodgrains rot in the government-owned storage facilities. A solution to the problem could be more competition in the food storage sector leading to better outcomes for all the stakeholders. 
 Third, there is an imperative need for reallocation of human resources to higher productivity activities. It means that choice must be given to <keyword id="48857" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Farmer">farmer</keyword>s who want to move to other sectors of the economy for their livelihood. 50% of the population still in a relatively non-productive sector does merit serious scrutiny and action by policymakers. It also means that the government should look at a cluster-oriented approach to agro-industrial development. Corporations make huge profits out of agricultural value added products even when some of them are unhealthy for consumers. The government should foster newer business models (Like Amul, Lijjat Papad), which can provide employment as well as create value for farmer communities across India. It has tried to do it in this budget with the establishment of the MUDRA bank that aims to provide credit to small business units. However, credit is only a part of a much bigger malaise. The problem of farmer suicides and Indian agricultural output can be solved only when there is a multipronged structural approach to solving the issues. It includes reducing farmer's dependence on rain, providing better market access to agricultural produce, bettering infrastructure for storage, a greater choice to farmers for livelihood and value addition to agricultural produce by farmer communities. 
 (<keyword id="209438" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amit-Kapoor">Amit Kapoor</keyword> is Chair, Institute for Competitiveness &amp; Editor of Thinkers. The views expressed are personal. Amit can be reached at <a href="mailto:amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in">amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in</a> and tweets @kautiliya. The article is co-authored with Sankalp Sharma, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Competitiveness, India.) 
 
Image: thinkstock

You Searched For "who founded lijjat papad" and got 3 results

The 91-year old woman behind India’s most famous papad brand gets the fourth highest civilian honour ⁠— she started with ₹80

Rounak Jain

6 successful women entrepreneurs who rock the Indian startup scene

Guest Author

Three points about the Indian Agricultural Sector

Amit Kapoor

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides