The rise of India's poppadum queen

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Pioneer of one of the most amazing success stories in Indian business, Jaswanti Ben, and seven other out-of-work women, started her poppadum rolling business with a loan of just $2.

The idea was to earn some extra cash to supplement their families' meagre incomes.

That was in 1959.

Now the business employs more than 40,000 women and has an annual turnover of nearly $50m.

Like Jaswanti Ben, most of the women who now work in this poppadum or native crisps business - known as the Shri mahila griha Udyog - come from a humble background.

Most are illiterate, almost all are poor.

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The Lijjat enterprise's success is also down to the way it is run.

Everybody starts at the bottom and works their way up according to a co-operative system which promotes the concept of dignity of labour.

The Lijjat presidency, for instance, rotates amongst the executive committee members, who are elected from the workers.

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Each woman worker earns $2-5 a day, depending on her output, and additional benefits accrue from the fact that each is a partner in the business.

But the driving force is not increased profits, but the empowerment of Indian women by making them literate and financially independent.

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But the apparently homely production techniques belie stringent quality control which, according to Jaswanti Ben, is the secret of the company's success.

The firm's products taste exactly the same wherever they are made, "east, west, north or south India", she says.

"We never compromise on quality."

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Spoken like a true McDonalds exec, har har.

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I put them on towels after cooking, but are they supposed to be so greasy?

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i thought this was an interesting article given the earlier one about the "lipstick liberation" of Afghani women. how does it compare?

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This is the sort of thing that can happen when change comes from within the people who can best identify what their needs are. Well-meaning Westerners (or opportunists looking for a new market for their goods, ie. the so-called lipstick liberation in Afghanistan or Nestle's baby forumla nightmare, or a thousand different IMF and UN projects) have a history of creating more devastating problems than they solve, because they project their own narrow set of values onto those they seek to "help".

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Jaswanti Ben is this year's recipient of Economic Times magazine's Businesswoman of the Year award...

Some business schools have even commissioned studies to understand this unique venture, run without any professional managers....

This is indeed a rare socialist business model in a world where capitalism seems to have gained dominance.

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