Lijjat Papad: Biggest Business Revolution movement by Indian Women

If you want to know about the woman empowerment in India and the revolution in woman employment opportunities in our country, you must read this story. Here, I’m trying to depict the incredible exhibition of India women in entrepreneurship. It’s about the Lijjat sisters who dared to initiate a small start-up of rolling “Papad” on March 15, 1959, at a terrace of three stories building in South Mumbai. 7 women were involved in this revolutionary foundation (Lijjat Papad). They started with seed capital of Rs 80, and now Lijjat’s annual turn over is about Rs 1600 CR with Rs 290 million in exports. It provides employment to around 45 thousand women across India with 81 branches and 27 divisions!

This is India’s first women’s cooperative movement and they just started this venture to form a sustainable livelihood by using their cooking skill. Later, they formed a high performing and standardized business model through which they’ve reached the global standard and won several awards.

Firstly, the organization doesn’t have any name. As they had enormous belief on astrology, the company name “Lijjat” was derived from a Gujarati astrologer. It’s a Gujarati term and it means “Tasty”. The members and co-founders in this organization are known for “Sisters”. The first day, they borrowed Rs 80 as an operating expense and purchased all the ingredients to prepare the papad. After selling 1-kilo papad they made a profit of 50 paise. The very next day they prepared 2 Kilos and this time the profit was doubled (Rs 1). The news was spreading like fire in the colony and other women from the areas around started joining them when they got to know about the profit margin. In 1959, Rs 1 had a great value and it came from women’s business. They had enough motivation and reasons to go for a big one.

From day one their movement was so transparent to everyone and here each woman was considered an owner. That’s why it’s called the co-operative movement, loss for everyone and profit for everyone. Though all the co-founders were Gujarati, however, they didn’t have any restriction on religion or cast and for this reason, they were able to build a unique women empowerment model. By using their latent cooking skill, Lijjat created a history. Lijjat sisters work from their residence only and now, they can around Rs 15k to 18K per month.

Lijjat built forty houses for the rehabilitation of the people of Bhujpur (Bhachau) in Kutch District.

After tasting tremendous success with their papads, Lijjat started producing other products like khakhra, masala, Vadi, wheat atta, and bakery products.

The team is also involved in several social works and After the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, all the branches of Lijjat gave a total donation of more than ? 4.8 million, including Rs 1 million from the central office. Lijjat built forty houses for the rehabilitation of the people of Bhujpur (Bhachau) in Kutch District.

Guys, this is a live example of a business model which is sticking to its core values for the past 58 years. This is a world class achievement and we should justify to it by purchasing Lijjat Papad!

TAKE RISK, VALUE PEOPLE. BE THE MOVEMENT

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