Thirty-five ambitious entrepreneurs from Aurangabad, Kolhapur and Pune presented their business plans to Lalit Kumar Jain, chairman and managing director of Kumar Urban Developments Pvt Limited (KUL) – which began life as the Kumar Builders group, and is still known by that name. These business plans were the outcome of an entrepreneur development programme the company has as its own CSR activity. The programme, launched last year on its Founder’s Day, 17 August, aims to inculcate entrepreneurial values into the various segments of society, to promote entrepreneurship in the country as what it hopes will be ‘a huge impetus to employment’. “We started the programme after huge preparation for a year, preparing the syllabus for school, degree and diplomas in EDP as well as a crash course on the subject,” Jain says. “A pilot crash course of three months was launched in October 2019. The first batch completed its learning separately in the three cities of Nashik, Aurangabad and Pune.” The first one, which ended on 14 March this year, was managed in ‘a very organised and efficient way’ he says. Started on 12 June 2019 with a two-month ‘Training of Trainers’ (TOT) programme for seven trainers, who will be backbone and efficient channels for this programme. These trainers are highly qualified, have sufficient experience in the fields of both training and business. They were put through a carefully-designed training schedule of business cycles, beginning with the identification of business idea and going all the way to the actual implementation of the idea.
Based on the analysis of the first programme, the company is developing an inline training course which will be available in various Indian languages
After completion of TOT, the trainers finalised the EDP curriculum, schedule, topics, activities and exercise, self-learning videos, detailed contents for the programme and mobilisation to start it in November. A three-month pilot EDP conducted at Vivekanand College, Aurangabad, enrolled 16 candidates, while another 34 came from the Sanjay Ghodawat Academy at Kolhapur and the remaining 20 from Zeal Institute in Pune. The best part, Jain says, is that most of them came from rurban areas – which are chiefly residential but where some farming is done – and many of them from the farmer communities.
Based on the analysis of the first programme, the company is developing an inline training course which will be available in various Indian languages, he adds.
Kumar Builders is accredited with ISO 9001: 2008 and ISO 14001: 2004 which is an environmental certification, standing testimony to its commitment to a greener and healthier environment. It has made major contributions to the environment having donated or planted more than 100,000 trees in the areas where it operates. It has also donated over Rs1 crore for water conservation in the rural areas of Maharashtra, mid-day meals for more than 5,000 students for a year and mid-day khichadi for the poor. For the last 20years, Kumar Builders Foundation – now KUL Foundation for Social Initiatives – has been working for overall development of children in rural areas of Pune under the Gunvatta Vikas Yojana aimed at promoting education.
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