A corporation that turns beggars into entrepreneurs
LUCKNOW : “Charity breeds poverty. But investment creates wealth.” This simple yet potent thought led to the setting up of ‘Beggars Corporation’ that aims at turning the vagabonds into entrepreneurs.
Set up in January 2021 by social worker Chandra Mishra in Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the corporation aim is not to rehabilitate beggars through donations but instead transform them into entrepreneurs by equipping them with desired skills.
“Presently 55 beggars from 12 families have turned businessperson’s by forming a self-help group. They are not only making conference bags, laptop bags, common bags of paper and cloth but are supplying them to top hotels of Varanasi, multinational companies. Recently, they supplied hundreds of bags for delegates who participated in national executive meeting of
BJP in Delhi,” said Mishra convener of Common Man Trust and founder of Beggars Corporation.
He added, “I am not here for rehabilitating the beggars through donations but I am here to transform them into entrepreneurs. I want them to realise the importance of labour. I want to provide them employment and help them lead a dignified life.”
On the reason why he chose this, Chandra said, “I came to know that Indians donate Rs 34242 crore annually (according to figures of Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation’s 2017 report) to India’s 413,670 beggars (figures from ministry of social justice and empowerment). I thought if that amount is invested then it would create more wealth.
In India, West Bengal has highest 85000 beggars followed by Uttar Pradesh which has 65,835 beggars. Varanasi where I work has more than 12,000 beggars out of them 6000 are healthy adults. If the donated money is used for training them into employment generators then it would change the picture of the economy.”
Encouraged by the success of pilot project, corporation has decided to eliminate begging from Varanasi by March 2023.
“Now, we are working out employment models, building capacities for the startups without help from the government. Charity breeds poverty. But investment creates wealth. If beggars can be entrepreneur’s then nobody can be unemployed,” he said.
On the challenges, he said “First I had to convince the beggars to work. I followed the formula of Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammed Yunus who financed more than 1 lakh selfhelp groups (SHG) of beggars in Bangladesh and all of them not only returned the principal amount but are running successfully running their SHGs. To my surprise most of the beggars agreed to work. Once beggars agreed to work the second challenge was to sell the products manufactured by them.”
Mishra said, “Now we have decided to enlist Beggars Corporation as a profit company and within five years we will also bring the IPO in the market. We are ready to pump in Rs 2.55 crore from angel investors and venture capitalists. We don’t want any monetary help from the government but we want them then to help us in marketing the products manufactured by beggars, besides helping us in identifying beggars, issuing them identity cards, providing treatment to disabled beggars and alternate livelihood to fit beggars wherever possible. This would help us solve the major problem of beggary in India. We are ready to invest but will need a bit of help from the government too.”
Mishra said, “Besides employment, educating the next generation of beggars is also important. For that we established a morning school—”School of Life”.”