As their classmates at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM A) jostle for jobs, Anurag Singal and Chaitra Chandrasekhar have decided to give the fat salaries a miss to contribute to society.
These students of IIM A’s postgraduate programme in management for executives (PGPX) have started ventures aimed at helping others. While Anurag started India’s first recruitment website exclusively for Chartered Accountants (CA), Chaitra will help promote village tourism by helping urban Indians experience the village lifestyle.
It was the alarming number of farmer suicides that led Chaitra to think of village tourism. Her venture will help villagers-who have quit farming and become daily wagers-earn extra money, by hosting corporates during visits to the villages.
“During my initial days at IIM A, I wanted to continue in the IT industry but five months ago, when I was working with an NGO in a village, I realized there is huge potential for promoting village tourism to corporates.