These businesses can survive in Manipur

Ranjan Yumnam *

These businesses can survive in Manipur :: Pix - TSE

I used to joke that the best business in Manipur is outside the State, which is only a half-truth or a lark whichever fits your outlook. I will be highlighting some sectors of business feasible in Manipur that are also inflation and war-proof. These are not secrets but I am reframing them by avoiding the jargon of Harvard Business Review.

First, we have to size up our natural resources. The first resource is the human capital and we have enough of it for the limited territory that we occupy. Natural resources are aplenty but the most commercial ones like oil and gas are buried underneath or trapped in the rocks. There is no policy to tap them.

So, the default fallback is the primary sector that consists of agri and allied industries which remain a principal source of livelihood for 60-70% of the population. Yet, there exists a huge potential for growth in fishery, poultry and horticulture. If you look at your breakfast bowl, most of the items are processed foods that come from outside the State.

The greens and beans are missing because they are expensive and the meagre local production cannot meet the demand. Similarly, frozen meats, fish, canned edibles and packaged foods dominate the shelves of retail stores. We consume more and produce less. In this scenario, the Agri and allied industry is nearly a blank canvas on which you can print money.

Second, is the healthcare sector. It’s not a surprise that Medicare produces more visible entrepreneurs in white coats. The demand for healthcare is universal across the socioeconomic spectrum of the people. Be it in Canchipur or Kanto Siphai, every person needs healthcare. Hospitals spring up because we need them; they don't arise in a vacuum.

Demand drives growth and creates a captive market for entrepreneurs to seize in response to the rising number of patients, epidemics, and diseases related to ageing and lifestyle. Without detracting from the ingenuity of the hospital management, Manipur is a fertile ground for the healthcare industry.

To those who are business-minded, the market of the sickly and ill is on a platter for grabs. The entrepreneurs as much as the public demand have me created an ecosystem of hospitals, medical professionals, pharmacists and diagnostic centres. Saturation and quality will likely become issues.

High-end medical procedures are still not available in Manipur as the entrepreneurs see little profit to be made from the smaller number of clients that are mostly drawn from the local population. Mind you, all the low-hanging fruits in the healthcare sector have been plucked by the pioneers who enjoyed the first-mover advantage. Quality and affordability will decide the next wave. Palliative and hospice care is an opportunity.

Third is education. Who needs education ? The Right to Education (RTE) made education a fundamental good to be provided by the Government free of cost. Since Govt does not have enough infrastructure and manpower to educate the masses, the private sector fills the gap. Like healthcare, it has a readymade market from the point of entrepreneurship.

Some winners have emerged but overcrowding and fly-by-night operators have affected the pedagogy. It’s high time for a tectonic shake-up and evaluation by the public to weed out non-serious entities so that only the best schools and colleges survive and thrive. It’s increasingly looking like a case of quantity quadrupling and quality quaking. A highly driven entrepreneur can build an empire of quality education.

Without mincing any words, the business of weddings will become bigger and brighter in the years to come. There is a wedding written on the fate of (almost) any man or woman, rich or poor, employed or unemployed. Weddings are made in heaven and we must carry out the business of rituals and ceremonies here on the ground.

The household’s courtyard for solemnising the nuptials has been shrinking due to the fragmentation of land under population pressure to build houses for nuclear families, a social trend which is on the rise. But the marriage ceremonies are becoming more elaborate, hand in glove with the latest trends in design, food art and other aesthetics of glitz and bliss.

Already, wedding season provides lucrative business to makeup artists, traditional musicians, handicraft/handloom artisans, specialised costume makers, photographers, caterers, gift packers, invitation card printers, etc. If you quantify the wedding biz, the attention given to marriages and the satellite activities revolving around a wedding, the market may be larger than healthcare.

Imagine a start-up which can provide all the above services to make it easier for the family to just deal with one wedding planner to take care of the nitty-gritty of the convoluted affairs. Brides and grooms may enjoy their last few days of freedom!

Wedding reminds us of the scarcity of skilled manpower. We need experienced workers to renovate our house, fix bathroom accessories, replace faulty electric wires, put a wallpaper, etc. But skilled labour is hard to find. The available ones are usually outsiders hailing from Orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan, etc. and their service is expensive.

Besides the cost and difficulty of getting hold of a reliable one, they don’t usually agree to lay their hands on low-budget gigs which they dismiss as minor works not worth their time. Sometimes, we have to wait out for days and tolerate a leaking water pipe or a malfunctioning AC that stopped whimsically.

You get the point. Local labour is the worst when it comes to honouring time and making good on their promises of delivery. In short, we are facing a crisis on the supply side of skilled labour and prohibitive wages.

I have excluded the IT-enabled services, stock trading, investments in gold, bonds, mutual funds and real estate businesses in the above observations. The reason is that, though these are the conventional routes to making money, they are not specific to Manipur. For example, when you buy cryptocurrencies, you are basically betting on a global faith and subject to probability. In the IT sector, the world is your oyster and so is the competition.

Of course, the definition of ‘success’ varies from person to person. Money making may be the life goal for someone, but living a simple life without the extravaganza and constant stress of the rat race could mean ‘success’ for some others. Creating wealth to solve society’s problems of unemployment and providing better products and services is commendable.

But minting money for its own sake is so anti-enlightenment. Because to live a decent life, you need very little — a reasonable monthly income, maybe a tiny house, electricity, two meals a day, and an internet connection. Life Lite deal.

BONUS: Rent-seeking activities are the most profitable businesses with zero investment, nil risk and hollow contribution to society. Find the right company.