The ‘pad men’
Subhayu Sen & Rupak Debnath
Anugata Industries
Working in a private company in Agartala, Subhayu Sen was looking for a socio-economical project which could be implemented in Tripura. In the year 2018, Subhayu finally got his partner Rupak Debnath on board and decided to start Anugata Industries— a low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturing company.
“The idea behind starting this low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturing industry came up because I was always looking for self-dependency. This is the best option which I had found and it was a new concept as well,” explained the 32-year-old co-founder of Anugata Industries.
Both Subhayu and Rupak received support through the Prime Minister Employment Generation programme with capital subsidy to start the industry with an aim to provide women empowerment and basic hygiene at a very low cost.
“Many of us are still not aware of the importance of hygiene, so we are providing basic hygiene as well as a low cost model to the society. Being an entrepreneur we are providing livelihood for the villagers and women at large,” Subhayu added.
He also said that there is a lot of difference between a business and enterprise and they wanted to do something which would help in bringing a socio-economic change in the society and also give a message about the importance of sanitary napkins.
The duo are providing employment to 12 women who themselves sell the napkins from door-to-door after manufacturing them.
“The industry is totally run by women and with support from Tripura Rural Livelihood Mission, members from different self-help groups also purchase the sanitary napkins to sell across the state,” Subhayu added.
Currently, the industry manufactures around 60,000 sanitary napkins in a month and sells them in around 10,000 packets. The duo also received appreciation from the state government and chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb for their initiative to start something new in the state.
Platform for NE talent
Mughavi A Tuccu & Joysankar Bhattacharjee
TOTELL
Started as a joint initiative by two North-east students studying at Lovely Professional University (LPU), Mughavi A Tuccu and Joysankar Bhattacharjee, TOTELL was conceived on the idea of creating diverse, open, free, original, and truthful sources of information for robust exchange of ideas.
Speaking with EastMojo, Tuccu said that TOTELL aims at spotting the artistic talent and provides them an ideal platform towards building their ideas and presenting them to a broader audience.
“TOTELL is also an open platform, which offers insight and in-depth opinions from the upcoming talents as well as professionals. We nurture and manage talents in enhancing the brand value to promote companies, art, and culture, creativity, and also the hidden talents that are needed to do unique contributions to the world,” said Tuccu, who is also working as coordinator of the Tribal Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Delhi.
Starting from Jalandhar, the company went to Delhi, and then finally moved its head office to 16-573/B Totell Tower, Krishna Nagar in Agartala. Besides Agartala, it is also operating in Dimapur, Delhi, Jalandhar, Calcutta, and Mumbai. It has five ventures namely Totell Express, Totell Communication, Totell School of Learning, Totell Fashion & Events For You.
“Scribblemania, The Terrace Open Mic., Sunset Unplugged, Tongthakmani Mr & Miss Tripura and Dugga Dugga Sharodiya Excellence Awards are a few initiatives taken in Tripura and also initiated North-east Fiesta in 2016 Jalandhar, Punjab, apart from various associations, and participation. We have 62 (excluding co-founders) official interns and associates working for TOTELL,” Joysankar added.
Growing success
Samaresh Debbarma & Mujesh Debbarma
Apple farming
Inspired by a YouTube video that apple can be grown in high temperature area, Samaresh Debbarma (41) said that he and his partner Mujesh Debbarma (29) set out on a unchartered farming territory.
The brother-in-law duo undertook the initiative and successfully produced apples of different variety in Amtali village council, under Charilam RD block in Sepahijala district, around 30 km from Agartala.
“We found that many states having high temperature are still growing apples of different variety after which we started contacting experts. We came in touch with Hariman Sharma apple nursery, in Himachal Pradesh,” Samaresh said.
Sharma, also known as ‘Apple man’ from Himachal Pradesh had developed HRNV-99 variety apple which can be grown in low altitude at 1800 feet above sea level was conferred with the National award apple in 2017 by former President Pranab Mukherjee.
The duo also contacted experts in West Bengal and purchased two other varieties of apple trees—Anna and Golden in addition to HRMN-99 variety.
In April last year, we planted apple trees and contacted with Gautam Mandal and there are many apple varieties can be grown in hot temperature area, he added.
“We purchased apple trees at a cost of Rs 350 for each apple tree in three phases starting from the month of January last year. We have spent over Rs 5 lakh on the apple crop field and now it has started flowering. We hope that our hard work pays off,” said Samaresh hopefully.
*Courtesy: EastMojo, SeSTA, YouthNet