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Last updated: 27 Sep, 2014  

siddharth-chaturvedi-director-aisectTHMB.jpg MSMEs need a networking platform to sustain: Director, AISECT

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Saurabh Gupta | 10 May, 2014
High interest rate, difficulty in accessing growth capital, skilled manpower shortage and lack of "risk and reward" kind of funding are some of the major factors contributing to increase in numbers of sick micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country, Director, AISECT, Siddharth Chaturvedi said in an exclusive interview to SME Times.

He also spoke about the solutions to these issues. He said there has to be an institutional framework for hand holding and support of MSMEs in the country, which can provide sound advice and also networking platform to MSMEs, on similar lines to CII and FICCI etc. And there has to be dedicated fund lending organizations for MSMEs, which can provide easy finance meant for growth of the MSMEs.

AISECT is India's leading skill based and ICT Training and Educational services network with an un-rivalled spread of over 12,000 centres across 27 states and 3 Union Territories in the country. AISECT has to date transformed the lives of over 1.6 million people through a host of skill enhancement programs and generated over 12,000 rural entrepreneurs in the country.
Excerpts of the interview...

We know that AISECT is India's leading IT Training and Educational services network. Tell us more about AISECT.
Siddharth Chaturvedi: Over the years, our organization has intervened with strategic innovations to reach out to the target audience which comprises primarily of semi-urban and rural masses. Besides IT Training and education services, AISECT Group works in quite a number of areas to uplift the rural and semi-urban masses. From common service centres and banking services to rural job placements and higher education institutions, AISECT is continuously striving to cater to the needs of semi-urban and rural population. We have pioneered the 'Multipurpose Centre' Model which utilizes the existing infrastructure of an Education & Training Centre to offer numerous services. Through our 12,000 multipurpose ICT centres we offer services like information window, maintenance and repair, sale of allied products and services, e-Governance, banking and insurance services, etc. Under financial inclusion scheme, AISECT is working with 26 nationalized banks for extending hassle-free banking services at an affordable cost to the underprivileged and unbanked population in the districts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and in those districts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Punjab where AISECT is acting as a Service Centre Agency for the prestigious Common Service Centre (CSC) Project. Since we have an unmatched understanding of the recruitment needs of the unorganized sector, our organisation has launched the biggest rural job placement initiative of India, 'rojgarmantra.com' that focuses on fulfilling the entry level job requirements of private and public sector enterprises. We also conduct numerous 'Rojgar Melas' (rural job fairs) to establish strong industry linkages and create an extensive database of skilled and semi-skilled manpower for the unorganized sector. Moreover, 'Eduvantage PRO', an Interactive Multimedia Content, has been launched to bring in a low cost, high quality multimedia classroom solution for the K-12 school students at the small town, district and block levels. Our organisation has also established two private universities & several higher education institutions at places which were in dire need of quality higher education. We also launched a portal 'aisectonline.com' which empowers students with anywhere, anytime access to education, thereby fostering a collaborative and interactive approach to learning.

Besides your training programs, what else, which is unique, you offer for the development of young entrepreneurs?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: The AISECT Model is a self-sustainable, demand led model which reflects the demand side of communities for various skills and services required in the unorganized sector. To ensure sustainability and scalability, an entrepreneurial network was set up involving a host of rural entrepreneurs across the country. Today, the organization is India's biggest entrepreneurial driven network at the district, block and panchayat levels. Currently, there are over 12,000 rural entrepreneurs associated with AISECT network and having an annual income ranging from Rs. 2 lakh to 1 crore. Our attempt is to continuously provide an increasing number of revenue earning opportunities to our centre owners. Moreover, we are flexible in letting go of renewal fees or royalty share for some time if they are unable to manage funds properly for some time. We also ensure that the rural entrepreneurs are continuously exposed to several workshops and training modules at various levels. Like right from tutoring him on the financial aspects of running a business and taking him through entrepreneurship development programs all the way to supporting him in areas like Study Material, Teaching guidelines, examination conduction and certification, AISECT is present at every step.

You have your centres across the nation but primarily in rural and semi urban India. What is the reason for that?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: As 70 percent of Indian population resides in rural India, our target from the day of AISECT's inception has been to bridge the rural-urban skill and ICT gaps by reaching out to the remotest corners of the country through our initiatives. While the Government and the private as well as public sector players have recently started paying attention to the skills and ICT training & services requirements of the rural masses, AISECT's Founder Mr. Santosh Choubey realized early on in the 1980s that there is an urgent need of disseminating services in rural sectors of the country to meet the emerging needs of a rapidly growing economy. Therefore, the organization has been a front-runner in recognizing and actively working to reduce the ICT and technological literacy gap between urban and rural India and propagating effective and sustainable employment solutions for India's less developed areas.

Your mission is to reach out to the remotest corner of India. How can a youth from remote part of India get the information about your training programmes? And how cost-effective are your training programs?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: AISECT has already created a tremendous mark in the field of education by training more than 16 lakh people in rural and semi urban areas. Since our centres are set up at various district, block and panchayat levels across 27 States and 3 Union Territories of India, it becomes easy to reach out to the rural youth.Over the years, AISECT has taken a lot of steps to create awareness and bring vocational education to rural India. We regularly organize IT Yatras to reach out to the grassroots with a view to initiate IT awareness.We have also launched a portal 'aisectonline.com' to empower students with anywhere, anytime access to education and foster a collaborative and interactive approach to learning. Besides this, we have also invested in a studio at our Headquarters for creating audio visual content that is used to train the faculty members. The studio also records motivational songs to encourage and spread awareness amongst the rural population. We also advertise in major regional newspapers and regularly get editorial write-ups about the latest developments within the organizationin major regional newspapers.

As the target audience primarily belongs to the economically disadvantaged sections of rural and backward areas, AISECT strives to keep the course fees as competitive as possible. The course fees are inclusive of registration, training material, exam and certification, placement, and post-placement tracking.Our relatively low fee structure combined with good education and service makes AISECT very popular in rural India.

Apart from developing entrepreneurial skills, do you also help in establishing a start-up company? And how?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: Not exactly but yes to a certain extent through our entrepreneurial business model. For somebody who is new to running a business, it always helps if there is a framework to work by and if there is a guiding hand. Partnering with an organization like ours and opening an AISECT Centre always gives young budding entrepreneurs a platform to start off from and grow.

How many entrepreneurs have you generated during your long span of 29 years? And how are those entrepreneurs performing at present?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: We have so far generated over 12,000 rural entrepreneurs who earn an annual income ranging from Rs. 2 Lakh to 1 Crore.These entrepreneurs, who own AISECT centres across the country, in turn employ staff which has led to the employment of over 50,000 people within the AISECT network. Moreover, they have beaten all odds including shortage of electricity, lack of internet penetration and language barriers, to offer more and more ICT & skills based services and products to the community. Through sheer perseverance, these rural entrepreneurs are today making a significant contribution to the IT revolution taking place in our country. AISECT's association with Central & State Government for various projects as well as with the IT industry has helped the rural entrepreneurs in having a better stature in their local community. Moreover, since AISECT Centres are a hub of service offerings which cater to the needs of a particular geographical region, this makes the centre financially viable and thus more and more profits are earned by rural entrepreneurs.

Closure rate of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India is also very high. What do you think is the reason for that?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: One of the main reasons for high closure rate of MSMEs in India is high interest rate and difficulty in accessing growth capital. There are very few "risk and reward" kind of funding organizations available in the country, which seriously hampers the growth of usually asset light MSMEs. Even if MSMEs are able to tap into capital, the interest rates prevalent in the country leave very little room for growth for the MSMEs.

Another reason is lack of any institutional hand holding framework for smaller organizations, which might be constantly looking for advice and support. Lack of availability of adequately skilled manpower also acts as a deterrent for growth of the MSMEs.

What are the issues that you think need to be addressed to bring down the closure rate of MSMEs?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: Primarily, there has to be an Institutional framework for handholding and support of MSMEs in the country, which can provide sound advice and also networking platform to MSMEs, on similar lines to CII and FICCI etc.

Secondly, there has to be dedicated fund lending organizations for MSMEs, which can provide easy finance meant for growth of the MSMEs. MSMEs should also be encouraged to partner with local skill development training providers to continuously upgrade the skills of their employees, part funding or subsidy for which can be provided by the Govt.

Do you have your training centres in urban region in India? Or have any future plan for covering urban area too?
Siddharth Chaturvedi: As mentioned earlier, we have consciously been focusing on the semi-urban and rural population. There are already well established players in the urban areas who offer training programmes and services based on the requirements of the urban youth while our entire product portfolio has been designed based on the needs of the community at the small town, district, block and panchayat levels. Hence, we have no plans to target and cover urban area by setting up training centres over there as of now.

However, AISECT is completely conscious of the emerging need of driving e-learning in a big manner, which will cut across all boundaries between urban and rural India and make quality e-learning accessible to all youth from all corners of the country. In that sense, AISECT also would be working closely with youth of urban India in engaging them through e-learning courses.
 
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E-wallet rechagr
Sheetala Parsad Sharma (9406380478) | Sat Jan 30 08:13:33 2016
Dear sir, Please E-wallet Recharge my Csc Center Bewarti (204290) Aisect Account by Diposit (02-02-2015) Rs. 5520/- Sir mai Accout Department secastion 15-20bar e-mail karne ke bhad bhi e-wallet rechage nahi karte to mai kya karu sir


Loan deatiless
salman | Wed May 21 19:37:27 2014
I am salman and I am from.hyderbad and I wil try export Loan I wil try 2 year is complet but not doing loan so pleace help me and my mobile no is.09346562461 07799540786


 
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