..some thoughts on Social Entrepreneurship

About a month back, I was in Bangalore, and gate-crashed in into a friend's home to lounge around for about a week. Abhijit Bhaduri is a dear friend - a multi-faceted person who carries an author, singer, manager, actor, etc., all in one single body... and a blogger too at http://abhijitbhaduri.com

One side-benefit of staying with him was being featured on his site for this piece on Madhukar Shukla on Social Entrepreneurship

Abhijit: In a Business School environment, the focus is on the economic motive aka the profit-motive. What prompted you to initiate a course on social entrepreneurship?

Madhukar Shukla: Let me start with a qualifier about this term “business school”. This is a rather recent conversion of what were traditionally described as “management schools”, i.e., educational institutes which teach people how to create value by managing resources more efficiently and effectively – whether in business or in other social settings. By equating ‘management’ only with ‘business’, we tend to limit the vast array of roles which a management professional can play in the society. After all, almost 92-93% of India’s employable manpower, which accounts from almost 60% of our GDP, lies outside the for-profit organized business.

In that sense, my starting this course and other activities related to social entrepreneurship in XLRI is not really a radical departure from the core purpose of any management school or professional – though, yes, it does seem out-of-synch with the contemporary understanding of what management is all about.

For me personally, it was also born out of the realization that if management professionals have to ‘create value’, then in contemporary India, the critical managerial challenges lie out there in the larger society, not within the corporate boundaries. In today’s India, we need genuine management solutions to address larger societal problems.

Let me give some examples to illustrate what I mean:

Take GOONJ, a social enterprise organization which collects, sorts, and repairs 50-tonnes of reusable clothes from middle-class homes in Indian cities every month, and reaches them to the poor in the interior villages across 20 Indian states. Its per-unit cost of reaching a single piece of clothing to any part of India is less than a Rupee.

Or take SELCO India, which provides solar lightning solutions to rural masses at affordable price by financing the product through microfinance options; or Vaatsalya Hospitals, which provides state-of-the-art high-quality healthcare to semi-urban towns at affordable price; or Samridhi, which provides sustainable livelihoods to vegetable growers and milk-producers by providing them with easy market-access and better returns for their produce.

There are thousands of such examples of social enterprises which utilize managerial skills to make a real difference in the lives of people and society. Unfortunately, these stories and cases rarely become a part of the management education curriculum, and therefore, young management professionals never come to know about these options. One of the key objectives of the social entrepreneurship course was to provide exposure to such examples and options to the students.

Abhijit: Does the social enterprise need to run differently than the conventional for-profit organizations?

Madhukar Shukla: Oh, yes, in a number of ways! Firstly, there is the basic difference in the purpose of the organization itself. The for-profit organizations, obviously, exist to make profits – whereas the primary purpose of social enterprise is to make a social impact by solving critical societal problems. Since the purpose itself is different, the organizational processes and systems to achieve the purpose need to be different. One critical difference emanates from the question: who are the key stake-holders in the enterprise? Whose interests does the enterprise primarily serve? As compared to the for-profits, who primarily serve interest of the promoters or shareholders, for the social enterprises, the responsibility is to the community they serve.

Secondly, it is easy to measure profits, and therefore the success (or failure) of the commercial ventures. However, measuring social impact is not so very easy – I mean, it is very difficult to answer the question if one has made a difference in the life of people. Moreover, often the impact of social venture becomes visible only after many years. For instance, if Pratham’s Read India Program made more than 30mn children literate during last 4-years, its actual social impact – did it make them more productive? more socially aware and responsible? – can be assessed only after many years when these children grow up.

Abhijit: Do you notice something different among people who become social entrepreneurs? Are they motivated by different drives?

Madhukar Shukla: At least in my experience, in terms of their capabilities and qualifications, the social entrepreneurs I have met are just like any other entrepreneur. They possess an entrepreneur’s sharp sense in identifying a gap – an underserved “market” – and then designing innovative solutions to meet its needs. For instance, it is a common knowledge that urban middle-class households often find it difficult to locate qualified workmen (e.g., plumbers, masons, maids, carpenters, etc.), for odd domestic jobs; on the other hand, workmen with these skills spend inordinate time looking for jobs. Solomon JP, an Ashoka Fellow, saw an opportunity in this gap, and founded an online exchange, LabourNet, which connects the work-men with their prospective clients.

Similarly, like any entrepreneur (and unlike a typical manager) their ways of approaching issues is different; they seem to start by identifying what they want to achieve, and then working backward to mobilize resources to reach that goal. In doing so, they seem to have an innate ability to learn and self-correct as they move towards their goals. This makes them quite open to look for new opportunities. I still recall talking with the founder of a venture which works to rehabilitate the children of sex workers. When I asked her about her “fund-raising strategy”, she laughed and said, “oh, we decide what we want to do to make a sustainable impact in the lives of these kids – and then for funds, we pray!“ On probing further, she cryptically commented, “Well, in our case, so far the decisions have always preceded the resources!” I have found this stance across almost all social entrepreneurs I have known.

However, what does differentiate social entrepreneurs from others (including the commercial entrepreneurs) is the depth and intensity of their active engagement with larger society. The key-word is “active engagement”. While many of us feel strongly about social issues, mostly our concern does not get translated into specific actions. For social entrepreneurs, their concern about social issues is an over-arching factor which determines their actions. This also gets translated into a strong sense of accountability to the communities they serve.

Abhijit: How valid is the hypothesis that if the social enterprises scale up, they suffer from the same challenges/problems which the large for-profit organizations suffer from?

Madhukar Shukla: Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’! – depending upon how we interpret the term “scaling up”. If it refers to scaling up of the enterprise, then obviously, like any organization, it will face the growing-up pangs like any for-profit venture.

However, in the social entrepreneurial space, scaling-up has another meaning too. Since the purpose of social venture is to make a social impact, perhaps it makes more sense to think about scaling-up of the “impact” rather than that of the “enterprise”. Social ventures actually scale-up the impact by creating a successful model which can be replicated by others. The success of Grameen Bank is not so much that Prof Md Yunus created an organization which could scale up to serve millions of poor in Bangladesh; rather its success was in developing and demonstrating a model for financial inclusion, which could be replicated by thousands of social entrepreneurs across the world.

Abhijit: Do you see that for-profit and social models merging together in time to come?

Madhukar Shukla: At least in India, with such a huge BoP (Bottom of Pyramid) “market”, this overlap between the for-profit and not-for-profit social ventures already exists. In the recent years, we have seen regular commercial banks foraying into rural areas to provide micro-credit, FMCG companies creating and marketing products for the rural masses, or telecom companies offering schemes which people with limited income can avail. Conversely, there are also a large number of social ventures which are for-profit – some registered as Section 25 companies, but also many as Private Limited Companies.

However, in spite of this increasing convergence between territories of the for-profit and not-for-profit models, my own hunch is that at least in India, the for-profit model will not be able to completely replace the not-for profit social ventures – at least not for many decades to come. My reason for saying this is because the for-profit models rely on existence of a “market” – i.e., a reasonably sized segment of people who can pay for a service or a product. In contemporary India, however, 837mn or 77% of the population lives on a daily income of less than Rs 20/day – and thus, a large proportion of population still remains outside the “market”. Or it offers profit margins which would make a commercial venture non-viable. That’s why the social ventures will continue to retain their relevance and separate identity.

Grassroutes: Developing Villages through Rural Tourism

When OutlookBusiness covered Grassroutes - a rural tourism venture founded by an XIM, Bhubneshwar graduate, Inir Pinheiro - it desicribed it as:

"The venture, named Grassroutes, hopes to transform nondescript villages, near the metros, into viable tourist destinations; viable for him and beneficial to the villagers with increased livelihood opportunities."

Social Venture Angel Investors/Incubators @ XLRI, Nov 15-16

My course on Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship is coming to an end in a week on Nov 16th, when the groups will be presenting their social venture plans.

I have invited Sonali Singh, Director, Start up!, and Vijay Shukla, Co-Founder, Setu Ventures to assess and give feedback on their plans. The previous day - Nov 15th - they will also be interacting with class to share what the angel investors look for in a plan.

Sonali Singh is Director with Start up! - a venture which aims to demystify the business of "getting started", and partners with social entrepreneurs to incubate innovations, sculpt models, forge connections and raise resources to enable launch of new ideas and ventures.



Based out of bangalore, Sonali has worked for 10 years with corporate and civil society sectors of India. She did her post-graduation at National Institute of Fashion Technology, and worked with garment industry in production management. She then went to pursue her second post-graduation in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from XLRI Jamshedpur, and began her career in human resouces (HR) at Citibank. She later joined Accenture where she worked for over five years in various roles. In her last role, apart from leading the HR function for more than 1,200 employees in India, she was also India lead for Policy and Employee Relations.

In early 2008, Sonali decided to switch careers and undertook a couple of short-term projects with CSOs before joining Comat, a Bangalore-based social enterprise for a short time. In April 2009, she joined Start Up! as full-time director.

Vijay Shukla is the Co-Founder of Setu Ventures, a firm that provides professional and financial assistance to early stage companies and entrepreneurs, and has over 15 years of industry experience (with Steel Authority of India, E&Y and GlaxoSmithKline), and specializes in the areas of strategy, business development, consulting and engineering, and is interested in the areas of value creation, technology, entrepreneurship and education. He is a ‘parallel entrepreneur’ and has earlier co-founded Eduvisors, India’s largest education sector focused business consulting and research services company, and ValueFirst, India’s leading enterprise mobile data services company.



An engineering graduate from IT-BHU and MBA from XLRI, he has mastered the ‘art’ of evaluating business strategies and organizational processes through his career with working in the domains of public sector, entrepreneurship, information and mobile technology, FMCG and management consulting services.

from small beginnings... what makes a social entrepreneur?

Ever since, I got interested in the field of Social Entrepreneurship (which is quite recent in life), I was fascinated by the small beginnings from where some of the life/world-changing social ventures started.

Describing the beginning of SEWA, Ela Bhatt once wrote:

"In 1971, migrant women working as cart-pullers in the city’s cloth market came to me in TLA, where I had started my work life working for textile mill workers of Ahmedabad. The women who lived on the footpath, were seeking help for better living conditions. Next month came the head loader women of the same cloth market, feeling agitated about very low rates of payment (30 paise per trip carrying the bale of cloth from a wholesaler to a retailer). They felt exploited by the traders. Then followed the used garment dealer women in search of credit facility... That was 1971. Some of these urban, poor, self- employed women workers came to the meeting that I called in a public garden where we formed our trade union (1972). We called it the Self Employed Women’s Association, SEWA."

Similarly, David Bornstein described how Grameen Bank was born out of Mohammad Yunus’s chance meeting with Sufiya Khatun who would work hard to make bamboo-stools throughout the day, and yet earn just about 2 cents:

"… When Yunus asked why her profit was so low, she explained that the only person who would lend her money to buy bamboo was the trader who bought her final product - and the price he set barely covered her costs.

(Yunus) wanted to see if there were other villagers in similar circumstances… and compiled a list of forty-two people whose capital requirements, in order to buy materials and work freely, added up to about $26.00.

Through the years he would recount that story hundreds of times… "I felt extremely ashamed of myself being part of a society that could not provide twenty-six dollars to forty-two able, skilled human beings who were trying to make a living."

Likewise...

Delhi-based GOONJ, which collects about 40,000 k.g. of garments every month, and reaches them to the needy across 20 states, started in 1998 when its founder Anshu Gupta was struck by the bundle of garments lying unused in his almarah: “Here we are, a young family of two adults, new home-makers for just three years, not wealthy by any means and we have 67 pieces of good, usable garments we don't want any more. Yet, but for the disaster we wouldn't be giving them away."

AID (Association for India’s Development), which has 36 chapters in USA and operates more than 100 projects in 18 Indian states, started with a modest proposal by its founder K Ravi to his friends to contribute $10 to start a school in some Indian village.

The idea of providing affordable solar electricity to rural poor came to Harish Hande, the Ashden Award winner founder of Selco India, when he visited the Dominican Republic as a part of his Master’s thesis. Today, Selco has more than 30,000 installations and 25 service centers.

The Rickshaw Bank was conceived when veterinarian Dr Pradip Kumar Sarmah asked his rickshaw puller how much money he makes, and found that even after 16 years, he did not own the rickshaw, earned a paltry Rs. 25/day, and had to pay half his earning as rent.

Child Rights and You (CRY) started when 25-years old Rippan Kapur and 6 of his friends, sitting around his mother’s dining table, contributed Rs.50/- each to create a fund that could “do something for the underprivileged Indian child”. Today, it has grown into one of the largest child rights movement in the country.

…the list goes on.

What also puzzled me was that people who started these ventures were ordinary individuals. They had limited means and modest backgrounds. What stimulated them to create/do something significant was also just a commonplace occurrence, similar to myriad situations which we all encounter in our lives.

And yet, there was “something” they had, which allowed them to transform an everyday experience or act into sustainable ventures which could create major social impact.

So, what was that “something”?

As I learned more about such social entrepreneurs (be meeting them and reading), even their field of work may have been different (e.g., tribal and rural development, primary education, women empowerment, micro-credit lending, etc.), five qualities seemed to be common across them:

a. Belief in possibility of change and human potential
Underlying their efforts was the optimism that despite adversities and lack of resources/support, it is possible to create large transformations in a social system. This optimism is supported by a belief in the human potential – their own and of those others who are focus of their efforts - to make such changes happen. Ela Bhatt, for instance, was driven by the firm belief that even the poor illiterate women have a vision of personal change, and the capacity to make it happen.

Similarly, Harish Hande’s vision of reaching solar power to poor communities was based on the conviction that poor can afford, pay for and maintain technology.

It was this optimism and certainty that allowed them to envision futures that can be created by leveraging on this human potential for self-empowerment.

b. Inspired Pragmatism
While the underpinnings of their motivation was an internal need to create ‘social value’, to ‘do something for the marginalised’ or to ‘contribute back to the society’, etc., they did not adopt any charitable model to address the social issues. Their effort was to develop a model of “business” which was sustainable, and therefore, scalable. As Prof Yunus once explained his approach to eradicate poverty:

‘…I wanted to give money to people… so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them …. (I charged interest because) I thought if you do things in a businesslike way, then the project can become as big as you want it to because you are… not dependent on anybody.… This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.’

c. Capacity to Reframe Problems as Opportunities
Perhaps, what distinguished them from most of us was their opportunity-orientation. Their actions do not start from the decision about how best they can deploy the resources that they have; rather, they start from the issues need to be addressed, and then work backward to identify the resources that are needed to solve those problems, and innovate opportunities for generating those resources.

Consider, for instance, the Delhi-based Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT), which provides education, meals, boarding facilities, information on basic hygiene, counseling and medical help, and rehabilitation to around 3500 street- and platform- children each year. To partly finance its activities, SBT innovated the “guided street walks”, which are conducted by the street children. Not only this helps in humanizing the interface between the street kids and the social elites, it also provides a source of income to them and SBT.

d. Heightened Sense of Accountability to Those Served
The ventures they created were, of course, based on a deeply felt sense of obligation and accountability to the constituencies they served. There was an ethical impetus which guides their actions. But there is another, more important rationale for this sense of accountability.

Unlike the business entrepreneurs, markets do not work well for social entrepreneurs in providing a feedback on their actions. When one is in the “business” of creating social/environmental value, it is difficult to evaluate – and monitor - the intangibles such as social improvements, public good (or harm), or benefits for the marginalized, etc.

To offset this inefficiency in the environment in which they operate, they developed mechanisms to assess the needs of the communities which they aim to serve – and the extent to which their efforts and actions make an impact in meeting those needs. Wherever possible, they design market-like feedback mechanisms that reinforce their accountability to their constituencies. SEWA, for instance, developed a unique methodology to monitor its impact by asking 10 questions related to its twin goals of providing ‘full employment’ (including income and social security) and ‘self-reliance’ to its members.

e. Ability to Work Across Boundaries
They built not just the organizations, but also a collaborative network across different stakeholders in the issue (e.g., local population, state machinery, technology partners, micro-financial institutions, donors, etc.). Selco India, for instance, tied up with micro-finance agencies to provide credit to their customers/ beneficiaries; Goonj works through more than 100 grass-root organizations across the states to deliver need-based garments; and, CRY works with more hundreds of NGOs to reach the resources to those who need them, etc.

What perhaps made their ideas and actions sustainable was their ability to collaborate, to create networks, to share ideas, resources and credit with others to increase the sense of ownership in that network.

After all, as Harry Truman had said long time back:
“It is amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit”

*****

Social Entrepreneurship Course: Term-Break Internships

Last year when my course on "Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship" grew into a 2-term course, it threw open a new opportunity to provide the students a short internship/attachment with a social venture during the term-break.

The purpose of the internship/attachment was to give them a ground-level feel of ventures in this sector - their learning came through their interactions with the functionaries and staff, by visiting the project sites and interacting with customers/beneficiaries; if they could do a short field project (though the time was limited - just about 7-10 days), that was invaluable.... and then when they returned, we shared the stories and learned from each other.

This year too, the 35 participants of the course have identified their areas of interest and we could find social ventures (for-profits, not-for-profits, NGOs), which are willing to host them for 7-10 days.

Here is the list:

Bhumi (Hyderabad)
http://bhumi.in/
BHUMI is a "Center for learning transformational Grass Roots Leadership" fuelled by a vision to create an equitable and strife free society by grooming transformational leaders who will bring about large scale, holistic and sustainable transformation.

Biotech India (Thiruvantpuram)
http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/biotech
Getting rid of waste, both food and human, is essential to hygiene. But waste is also a cost-effective and sustainable source of fuel. Since 2004 Biotech-India - the recepient of the Ashden Award for 2007 - has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Kerala, Southern India and saved several thousand tonnes per year of CO2 simply by getting rid of waste.

Children's Rights in Goa (Goa)
http://childrightsgoa.org/
Children's Rights in Goa (CRG) is involved in child protection and the advocacy of children's rights. CRG is dedicated to the goal of improving the status of children in Goa. It strives to create awareness about the rights of the child and is committed to protecting children from sexual abuse and all forms of exploitation.

Conserve India (Delhi)
http://www.conserveindia.org/
Born of a desire to reduce India's rubbish mountain, improve energy efficiency, and help some of Delhi's poorest out of the city's slums, Conserve India achieves all this by turning plastic bags into high fashion.

Desi Crew Solutions Pvt Ltd (Chennai)
http://www.desicrew.in/
DesiCrew Solutions Pvt. Ltd - winner of Sankalp 2009 Award and recepient of the Manthan Award - is a rural BPO company, incubated by RTBI of IIT- Madras. By setting up IT enabled service centers in rural areas, it provides meaningful livelihood to educated people of rural & semi-urban India.

Financial Information Network & Operations Ltd. (FINO) (New Delhi)
http://www.fino.co.in/
FINO - winner of Global Financial Times "banking at the bottom of pyramid award" - provides electronic banking technologies to enable financial institutions (FIs) to serve the under-served and the unbanked sector and also to service the technology requirements of entities engaged in servicing the bottom of pyramid customers.

Health Management and Research Institute (HMRI) (Hyderabad)
http://www.hmri.in/
HMRI is a nonprofit organization working towards improved access and quality of healthcare services for all. HMRI leverages state-of-the-art information and communication technologies and modern management practices to transform healthcare delivery by creating the world’s largest integrated digital health network.

Mirakle Couriers (Mumbai)
http://www.miraklecouriers.com/
Mirakle Couriers - winner of Helen Keller Award 2009 and recepient of Echoing green Fellowship 2008 - is a courier company with a difference; the venture provides livelihood to deaf people from underprivileged background, while providing professional service to some of the well-known corporate clients.

Palsa Pally Unnayan Samity (Mushirabad)
http://www.karmayog.org/ngo/PPUS
PPUS is an NGO which works to develop poor rural communities in the Murshidabad District to promote communal harmony, gender equity, and neutralisation of caste, creed and religion. It does so by by providing healthcare and education, and facilitating active community participation in self-governance, .

Pratham (Patna)
http://www.pratham.org/
Pratham is the largest non governmental organisation working to provide quality education to the underprivileged children of India. Pratham was established in 1994 to provide education to the children in the slums of Mumbai city. Since then, the organization has grown both in scope and geographical coverage.

Pravah (New Delhi)
http://www.pravah.org/
Pravah works with adoloscents and diverse groups like youth organizations and institutions to impact issues of social justice through youth citizenship action. Its programs aim to promote internalisation of social orientation and regard for common spaces, and to develop socially responsible decision makers of the future.

Priyasakhi Mahila Sangh (Indore)
http://psmssm.org/
Priyasakhi Mahila Sangh promotes development and livelihood activities for the underprivileged of the society. The organisation specifically works with women to strenghten women SHGs in rural and urban areas of different districts of Madhya Pradesh

Project Why (New Delhi)
http://www.projectwhy.org/
Project Why is a New Delhi (India) based non-profit organisation engagedin education support and life skill enhancement of slum children and their families. It works to create a model whereby quality education support in underprivileged areas can be provided by pooling community resources.

RAICO (Ranchi)
Some RAICO Products
RAICO is a young start-up, which works with 350 rural women of Jharkhand, and uses and enhances their skills to make and market designer hand-woven, hand-embroidered apparels and artificial jewelery.

Rang De (Chennai)
http://www.rangde.org/
Rang De is a non profit entity which aims to make low cost microcredit a reality for people to whom even ‘traditional microcredit’ is unaffordable. It does so by enabling individuals to become online social investors, and brings microcredit and online lending to the forefront, thus bringing down the cost of microcredit

Sasha (Kolkata)
http://www.sashaworld.com/
Sasha is the not-for-profit marketing outlet for more than a hundred groups of craftspersons and producers from all over the country. Apart from marketing, Sasha also involves itself in the formative stages of craft groups. Sasha works with these groups to revive crafts and develop new designs and techniques.

SOS Children's Villages India (Bawana)
http://www.soscvindia.org/
SOS Children's Villages is a non-governmental social organisation, which provides family-based long-term care, education and development of orphaned and abondoned children through its "villages".

Ujjivan (Bangalore & Delhi)
http://www.ujjivan.com/mission_goals.htm
Ujjivan is an micro-finance organisation - with 500 branches in urban and rural India - which provide financial services to the economically active poor, to enable them to lead a ‘better life’. It also participates in a holistic approach to poverty reduction through a partnership with Parinaam NGO by collaborating with institutions focused on childcare, education, health, vocational training, community development, shelter and disaster relief.

URAVU (Wayanad)
http://www.uravu.net/
URAVU provides livelihood to the marginalized and economically disadvantaged social groups, especially the traditional artisans, women and the indigenous people, through end-to-end bamboo-processing and producing eco-friendly handicraft products.

Women’s Interlink Foundation (Kolkata)
http://www.womensinterlinkfoundation.org/
WIF is a Kolkata-based organisation which works with disadvantaged women, children and communities (specifically with sex-workers, abondoned and trafficked children and women) to provide them with access to basic amenities and societal resources, and empowers the to improve their quality of life.

Hamara Footpath: Restoring Childhoods

Mumbai-based Hamara Footpath is a community effort taking responsibility for its city and for its children who are deprived of their childhood on the streets. It engages engage volunteers to educate children living on the streets through creative, fun and participatory methods.



Read more about them here.

Or, better still, if you are in Mumbai, and want to support what they are doing, participate in their "Fashion Street" initiative on Aug 14-15, 2010


Click on the image to view the details

Driving the folkswagon

Kalamandir started with "a vision to foster necessity and accessibility of arts and aesthetics in our day to day social life. Countering the mono culture, the venture looks for a creative, dynamic and diversified environment for the young minds among tribes and non-tribes of Jharkhand - who are fiull of finer senses."

In doing so, it has not only revived the dying tribal arts, but also now supports 2500 families, and has built up a "social business venture" with a turnover of Rs.1crores.

This story about Kalamandir was published a few months back:

It was a visit to the workshop of an impoverished stone sculptor in 1980 that chiselled out Amitava Ghosh's mission in life. The young banker and amateur theatre artist had just arrived in Jamshedpur, then a part of Bihar. Three decades on, villagers in the Singhbhum-Kolhan region hail him as the man who has revived four dying art forms, bankrolling a clutch of struggling artists, providing livelihood to 2,500 families, and inspiring hundreds to live by their art. "I met this sculptor named Guntha Laik on a visit to Chandil village. He had lost his house and farmland to the Subarnarekha dam project," Ghosh said. Moved by his plight, Ghosh started making regular trips to Chandil to explore ways of aiding Laik. "I tried to help him with funds, but couldn't do much."

The failure haunted Ghosh, then a 21-yearold fresh out of Kolkata's Scottish Church college, for years. His chance for redemption came in the mid- '90s, when he learnt about the dying tribal metal art of Dokra. "I visited Chakulia's Bend village to meet the last surviving Dokra artist. Phatik Rana had recently given up the trade to earn his living by working in farms," said Ghosh. "It was depressing to see an artist working the plough."

It took Ghosh five years to goad Rana back into his trade. Today, Rana is recognised for his skills - his products fetch him up to Rs 9,000 per month - and he is an icon for a generation of younger artists. In his village alone, more than 100 youngsters now make Dokra and earn almost as much as Rana does.

Ghosh also walked an extra mile for Kedar Nath Sahu, the Chhau dancer of Saraikela. The art, once the toast of tribal performances at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and stages in China and Russia, tottered on the brink of extinction while Sahu himself was plunged in poverty. Ghosh got Sahu to draw up a blueprint for a profitable revival of the mask dance. In 2001, he organised the first Chhau Mahotsav - the pivot on which the dance made a turnaround. Ghosh subsequently set up the State Chhau Centre at Saraikela to lend institutional support to the artists. Sahu, meanwhile, went on to bag the Padma Shri in 2004.

Ghosh took up another challenge - the revival of Firkal, a traditional war dance. He trained Potka village's womenfolk to make products from grass and bamboo to support their dancer husbands. Over the last four years, more than 500 wives have coaxed their men to perform Firkal and leave the earning to the women.