QIt is with very humble feeling; I wish to present my case in front of you all. I do not consider, I have done any phenomenal work but need based work. I have done and luck has favored me and my attempts. Today whatever I have done is because of all my friends and colleagues who have continuously given support, mental support and economic as well, which gave me confidence in those difficult days. I thank and pay my respects to each and everybody who has helped my institution. Now I narrate my story. I was born and brought up in a city of Ahmedabad. I was married to Mr Sambhusing Chauhan 1983at the 28 & 21 yrs of age respectively. My father was a mill worker and follower of Mahatma Gandhi. My husband hails from Rajasthan. My father in law was a great communist thinker .On both sides the senior members were almost illiterate. Though the family income was sufficient, with the increase in family size it became evident that there is a need to increase income. We both had decided since the day what got married, come what may, we will always and always follow good ways of earning money. At this juncture, we decided and settled in Solapur. We both were trying our level best to get a good job and enjoy the life but as days passed it were difficult to get a job. So slowly but steadily I started new ventures and started taking classes for small kids, tailoring and embroidery classes for young girls. This started my real career development. And this ignited not only developed my career but my colleagues, my nearby families and well wishers of the poor people. 11 years after we started our institute, now is getting recognition from the all walks of life. This is in nutshell my story. The details are as under: - In any Indian family, the lady has to look after various jobs in addition work and career development; in philosophical words I would call every Indian lady as “Dashbhuja” meaning she works as if she has ten hands. I decided, I will never develop my own career alone, but I will take with me many women members who are in need of such jobs/money as well. Hence, I started to converse with nearby women members of the family. As such because of husband’s expenditure which always exceeded his earnings. Everybody was looking forward to me as friend, philosopher and guide. At this juncture I admit without my husband participation whole heartedly, I could not have done anything. He looked after my house when I was away for the social awareness programs. I considered myself very lucky to have a husband who was keen in developing my career. I had meeting with many organizations but they failed to understand my approach in helping the needy people. So we formed a separate group and decided to go ahead with our plans and projects. The first project which we decided was to allocate a small job in the towel manufacturing units fortunately, the owners believed on my group. This started the ball rolling. And the women members, who were earning Rs. 200 to 250 per months, started earning to the tune of Rs. 1000 to 1500 per month. This created a confidence not only in our group but also many women members who initially refused to join. This effect started increasing membership of our groups. We started finding out some other means of job creation. We enquired with the nearby grocery and similar shops for cleaning and maintaining of the premises. The shop owner besides payment started giving grains e.g. wheat, rice etc. This type of the job not only gave confidence to the women worker but the husbands also started believing in our group. And this news started spreading like anything. By this time our membership had raised from 250 to 12000. And our group was one of the biggest groups in Solapur which proved to be reliable, responsible, responsive and therefore respectable.

Solapur is designated a big village which once upon a time had many successful textile factories. Without going into the details of why our mills were closed down, the fact which the Solapur city mill worker had to face was, jobless and addicted husbands. The women members of the families were the only earning source. The Solapur is also said to have three seasons hot, hotter, and hottest and almost always drought laden. When I came to Solapur, the per capita income of the average member of the family was going down and down and down. And this started chain of bad things addiction, suicide particularly the girl members and hand loans taken by money landres was day to day problem and so on. People started accepting job on any amount which was offered to them. The factory owners taking advantage of this started exploiting poor citizens of the city. While we few members started chit chatting ourselves, an idea kindled my heart and brain. Solapur is surrounded by many holy places viz Akkalkot, Pandharpur, Gangapur, Tuljapur and so on. There used to be lot of requirements of “Bhakari, Bhaji anni chutani” (Indian bread, vegetable, groundnut puttings). We started spreading news in the nearby required places. We called the entire member of our group and after many jugglery and attempts; we formulated a standard protocol for preparing above cited nutritious food. We had to work hard in procuring raw material for this. Within a short period of time we started selling 100 Bhakaries a day. One thing we decided that there will be no compromise on the quality of the food. And this is maintained even today. This was not a cake walk. We too had many speed breakers in different forms including human beings. But inner voice was saying waka waka means, just do it. And we succeeded. A single lady member started earning about 100 to 200 rupees per day. People started disbelieving. The road side hotels, conventional hotels and big function orders were our major sponsors. We too had difficulties which I would like to share. Wherever you go human being is same. Sometimes we had to take firm decisions when irregularities were observed. We saw to it, though the particular staff member was removed but family was not allowed to suffer. And we solved such problems very meticulously without hurting the family members. And this approach gave us lot of helping hands for our group. Our group started getting respect which is increasing logarithmically. In our group we work sue motu (Self Guided). We had odd approach to the problems. One lady was caught red handed stealing various things from the office. Instead of removing, her we made her in charge of stores. This not only reduced the theft, but improved the working that particular lady as well. The small group increased to such an extent that we had to formally register our group under the name and style “Udyog Vardhini”. The primary aim of this institute was to develop women entrepreneurs with minimum profit to the institute and trainers. In addition to it, we started working as a catalyst in making the jobs available to our members. It is exactly seven years we started this institute. Now, we are slowly started getting the fruits of the seeds we had sown long ago. The basic aim of this project is to make average Indian women, a confident effective, efficient, competent and social minded approach in our behavior. We believed in public education as well and we started entrepreneurship programme for various and varied facets of women problems. Right from marriage, pregnancy, problem of widows and divorcee. The sincerity and devotion with which we are working, even the upper class ladies members have stared joining our movement. We decided to have a big conference of similar minded ladies. The so called “Big” people doubted my judgment and said I will be happy if you get attendance of 200-250 people. My judgment was 2000 and to great surprise my judgment went wrong, in different way. And the attendance was 7000 delegates. Money is needed but whether money is our aim or whether it’s an instrument we are using to make human members and a better entrepreneur. We started working on new projects. Hence, our first new project was supplying the orders to the readymade garments. We had hardly a sewing machine. We procured 15 machines by this way or other. In initial days the machines were self paddled, Now all the machines mechanically operable. This increased the productivity and profitability. We also saw to it that we need not offer what we have but we saw to it that what the need of the society is. Until this time we were working through our residential premises. We procured a place around 25000 sq.ft. On a rented basis in the central part of the city. There we started a kitchen for supplying food to the needy people. Again the standard is class one. Not even once the food was stailed. We also have all the necessary licenses for running such beautiful food serving premises. I must thank the Rotary clubs for supporting this ‘Annapurana’ activity. I am considering, myself to be a “Mother” of this institute and hence I am very meticulous about that is happening in the premises. If something goes wrong, I curse myself and say to myself that “is it that I am failing in imbibing my ideas in the members”. Such things once again ignite my mind and start working accordingly. I feel, the success behind every project is a ‘System’. Everything must rout through the system. We all believe in self discipline. No doubt, the laws are need to the institution but what the ultimate need is “Heart”. And I am firm believed in concept, if somebody does wrong thing, I have adopted my own policy is to forget and forgive. This policy works not only for me, but also for party who have been forgiven. Sometimes I know, “my goodness is taken as weakness” but I have not left my idealism. We are organizing lectures on importance of Health, Education etc. We have a separate unit for helping the unfortunate couple who do not have issue to adopt a boy or girl from the parallel institute (Orphanage). We are trying to imbibing to the girl member that you must have the money but you have to save money for future as well.

It’s exactly 11 years we started our activities with a aim to overall elevate the status of women in the society. We have never advertised our projects but our works, our devotion, our sincerity and quality of our products have given us more than any advertisement. Our customers are our advertisers. I am indeed very happy to express in front of you, that the name of our institute was Mrs. Chandrika Chauhan, now Udyog Vardhini Chandrika Chauhan and after years to go it will be just Udyog Vardhini. I will be too happy to see this happen.

I am lady who is never happy with work we are doing. Somehow, a new idea strikes me and again back at square one as “Swayamsevak”. My ‘Swayamsevakatv’ gives me a fuel for the next work. Though, I have written this as my own story, I will be making injustice to 100 and 1000 of colleges who are helping and developing this institute. My financers, my well wishers and last but not the least my husband and my family members without whom I would have been just a failure. I wish everybody Healthy, Happy and request them to keep helping Udyog Vardhini as your family members.