Bihar hosts social Entrepreneurs from Indias Low Income States
at the Sankalp Forum-Samridhi Regional Summit and Awards.
Kanungo Insitute of Diabetes Speciality wins grand prize and Greenway Grameen wins in Women Impact
Eminent political leaderscongregate along with social entrepreneurs and investors to boost economic development activity in the poorest states of India
The Sankalp Forum-Samridhi Regional summit was held in Ptna on October 16, 2012. This initiative, organized by Intellecap, a social sector advisory firm and supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Deutsche GesellschaftfrInternationaleZusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH was aimed atsupporting an enabling and inclusive eco system for socially relevant enterprises in eight low-income states of India - Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Of the 50 enterprises who applied, almost 35 enterprises have operations in Bihar.
The Grand Winner who received a cash grant of 5 lacs at the Sankalp Samriddhi Award was won by Kanungo Institute of Diabetes Specialty (KIDS) in Bhubhaneshwar Odisha, that has a 100 bedded hospital and holds camps across rural areas to spread awareness about prevention and control of diabetes. The Woman Impact Award and cash grant of 2 lacs was won by Greenway Grameen that works in Jharkhand, Bihar, Rajasthan, UP, Odisha and West Bengal. The winner in the Agri category was Eco Tasar and in Clean Energy was Claro Energy.
Sankalp saw support from the Rural Development Department of Bihar, represented by Satish Ranjan Sinha, who filled in for the Secretary Amrit Lal Meena said, In MGNREGS Social Enterprises can participate in awareness campaigns, capacity building of stakeholders and developing models of implementation approaches where MGNREGS converges with schemes of Livelihood, Health, Insurance, Sanitation, etc to provide family and community based solutions.
Rajit Punhani,Secretary Social Welfare, Government of Bihar also attended and spoke about Bihars focus on inclusive growth with a special focus on women and child development.
Giriraj Singh, The Honourable Minister for Animal Fisheries Resources, GoB gave a rousing speech, welcoming Sankalp Samriddhi to Bihar, and spoke about the neeche machli, oopar bijli program in rural Bihar, and added that their target to triple fish production in Bihar by 2017 will be met by 2015. 89% of Bihar is rural and this is a very important priority for the ministry.
The day long summit witnessed participation from over 200 investors, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The discussions facilitated raised questions and identified solutions, to catalyze the growth of social enterprises in the underserved regions.
There were a number of side sessions and conversations at the regional summit that centered on issues that ranged from the need for effective collaborations and partnerships to promotion of investment opportunities in the region and the role sector enablers/incubators could play to accelerate the impact of social enterprises.
Speakers and participants at the one day event included Anant Sarma of SIDBI, Sashi Ranjan Sinha of Bihar based Saija Finance, Subrata Dutta Gupta of the IFC, Stefanie Bauer of GIZ, Deepak Saksena, Unilever and Shailesh Kumar of DFID, Deepu MP, Vice President and Head Customer Service Experience at Bharti Airtel and Mark Lowcock, Permanent Secretary DFID.
Stephanie Bauer, Advisor Private Sector Development, who addressed the gathering on behalf of GIZ, our agenda is to deepen the efforts in this region, in places beyond the metros in India. The knowledge session gave some important insights on how one can build capacities here.
Anu Gupta, Programme Manager at DFID added Bihar is a key focus area for us and we are happy to be here.
Aparajita Agarwal, Director Initiatives at Intellecap and Vineet Rai, Chairman and Managing Director at Intellecap hosted the event at Hotel Maurya Patna and added that Intellecap would be happy to deepen its engagement with change makers in Bihar. We are looking forward to partnering with likeminded individuals and organizations in the LIS regions of India, added Aparajita.
For more details, www.intellecap.com
For further information please contact:
Atul Malikram
9827092823
