In a first, Adivasi bizmen join Indian School of Business

Adilabad: Adivasi youth have created history of sorts by entering the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, after getting through a tough selection process. Some of them have gone on to become entrepreneurs themselves.

Agriculture BTech holder Atram Roshan Kumar of Utnoor in Adilabad district whose father was a government teacher said, “I felt that my dream had come true when I entered the premises of ISB and interacted with the experts and academicians there.” 

He is one of seven Adivasi students from Adilabad, Khammam and Warangal who were selected under the CM’s Scheduled Tribes Entrepreneurship and Innovation Scheme for 2017-18. They will be able to establish their own industries with the help of government funding through bank linkage. In March, Mr Kumar established ARK Agro Industries, a pulses processing unit in Utnoor having invested Rs 15 lakh including Rs 7 lakh bank loan under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. He supplies 400 quintals of red gram dal to 48 tribal ashram schools every three months and is trying to increase the plant’s capacity to supply to all the tribal hostels in the district. Mr Kumar had found it difficult to get a bank loan. He says that in the last four years his application for loan was rejected 98 times by 27 different banks and the TS Finance Corporation. He got a bank loan only after district collector Divya Devarajan intervened.