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by Rajen Kumar

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Running a magazine concentrating on issues of small and medium enterprises and managing with limited resources is a like living life on the edge. In this rush of meeting deadlines,...

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EMRC, Brussels Associates with SME WORLD as its New Media Partner

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General

The Invisible Entrepreneur

Sep 2008

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It is by natural instinct that we all strive for excellence and that too for creating a noble way of living. Thus we become creators of our own employment through our two hands. But even that needs support from nature, foes and friends alike. The saga never ends, as it is a daily ritual for surviving against all odds.

Take the case of Mohammed Ali, better known as a 'scissor man', a celebrated artisan, who has learnt the trade from his father. His father taught him a simple lesson, 'be a scissor man rather than one who crafts knife or dagger. Though both will cut but your proficiency requires you to 'create' by producing such great scissors that anyone will be proud of possessing one.

THE SCISSOR MAN

For almost half a century, Mohamed Ali's grinding wheel is moving unabashedly churning out scissor after scissor, branded with his toil and sweat, in a dingy by-lane of Delhi's little known address. Mohammed Ali is a reigning king in his own right with a superior cutting edge technology by producing the best of the lot. Did I say technology? But isn't technology a big word sounding like a sperm whale housed in an aquarium to the delight of the householder?

There is no one to arm Mohammed Ali with a better technology by providing not only lip service but also mechanism that could boost his production manifold and help him generate employment and also revenue for the exchequer.

The chain made in generations now runs the risk of being broken somewhere along the line as Mohammed Ali may be the last bastion in the war of human versus machine. Mohammed Ali's proven technology will fail to survive and so will the scores of human technologists who could have inherited the art from him.

Even his expertise could have been a subject of focus and study by our Government-funded technology development centers to educate people in manufacturing good scissors whose two blades have to have better synergy.

THE TWO BROTHERS

Take the case of the two brothers, Harbhajan and Sanjeev of Ludhiana, who have been manufacturing sewing machines for the last three decades. They never had an easy time because somehow, something is always amiss from their production scene. Either cardboard boxes are not in stock or the cast iron bodies have not arrived from the foundry else some integrated parts prefer to play truants to be away from the shelves where they are supposed to stay for the next call. Their 'technology' takes a back seat when their delivery schedules go haywire. It is never mandatory to be a graduate from B schools to highlight and set right the pitfalls but logistical loopholes plug the production schedules and the result is failure. One reaches a point of no return when your decades-old enterprise churns out frustrations rather than perfect products.

The two brothers say that they have failed to evince any support from any quarter.

Prashanta Ghosh of Kolkata is another case study. He makes tables of all varieties, which are hot-pressed at his make-shift workshop, which often turns into a nature's playground especially during rains when his workshop becomes a pond where one can net lot of utilities but fish.

Technology is wrinkled, so is the output as he is flooded with compliments of inferior product range. He needs about a hundred tables a day for his honourable and fruitful survival but could arrange only twenty to thirty due to monumental problems in manufacturing practices. There's none to help him with better knowledge nor is any assistance extended to him in upgrading the production facility. He doesn't know where to go; whom to call for help. Both cry foul, Prashanta as well his production facility and his years long expertise in manufacturing tables is facing defeat.

The big question is who allows them to suffer in silence? There is no monitoring agency, which can come to their rescue. The lucrative schemes of the government meant to extend a helping hand fall short of reaching them.

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