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Abdur Mukit Bin Rouf, a small entrepreneur from a village more than hundred kilometres away from Guwahati observed the huge resource of water hyacinth floating over the nearby lakes and wondered if it could be put to better use. He succeeded in developing lamp shades, ladies bags and dozens of other products. He goes from door to door in search of funds so as to expand his enterprise and sell these products in the market.

In the villages, nobody bothers to lend an ear to one’s impassioned plea for help. He has ideas, designs and products. More than forty women and men are employed in his fabrication work, more than 300 are waiting to join. While there is a demand for lamp shades, he is doubtful about ladies bags. When asked, he said women bargain a lot and the quoted prices don’t do justice to the time and effort invested in the production.

A leading idea centre doesn’t deem this business model very attractive for scaling up. Maybe some readers decide to support such a community based entrepreneur. His contact details are:

mukitrouf@gmail.com

9706962203

New Bakurpara

PO& Dist-Goalpara

akg

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Water hyacinth is an aquatic weed which is very difficult to control or remove. Godasu Narasimha from Muktapur village near Pochampally (famous for ikkat sarees and the bhoodan movement) has developed a ‘hyacinth cutting device’ helping fishermen to clear lakes from the plants. (Honey Bee Vol 22(4) & 23(1) October – December 2011 & January – March 2012, p.36)