ISAP Entrepreneurship series: Story 39 Extension - The Mantra for Success Though belonging to a family with an urban background, not a single day goes in the life of Mr Narinder Pal Singh, a resident of Guru Nanak Wara, Amritsar, when he is not giving extension services to farmers. Mr Narinder, a diploma holder in Agriculture from Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana has a professional experience of 11 years in marketing and salesof agro inputs. He stepped into retail agribusiness after successfully completing the training at ISAP-Amritsar in 2010 and is doing an annual turnover of ` 25.00 lakhs from his Agri Clinic and Agri Business Centre, S.K. Kheti Store, located at Basrike Gillan, District Amritsar. “Untill the time I started my own business I used to feel lacking due to lack of a degree in agriculture”, says diploma holder Narinder. He had realized that in an industry fraught with graduates and post graduates, the career growth prospects for a diploma holder were negligible. During the initial days of business, life was not easy for Mr Narinder. Though he could secure a loan of ` 5.00 lakhs from the Oriental Bank of commerce, getting customers to his shop was not easy. In spite of having goodwill in the region due his past job experience farmers would not come to him as the established traders in the market were selling heavily on credit. In order to differentiate himself from the crowd, he made a smart move. Utilizing his technical expertise of working with several input companies in the past he was able to categorize the best products of different companies in terms of quality and price. He started visiting the farmers and according to the crop health status and requirement of the farmer in terms of affordability, he started giving recommendations free of cost.This practice made the farmers realize how their routine trader was selling them costly inputs just on the lure of credit. The reduction in cost of inputs did the trick and he started getting customers.Mr Narinder makes it a point to identify the prevalent diseases so that the corrective measures are taken on time and losses are minimised. Though he prefers to visit the fields himself, during heavy seasonal rush he evaluates the diseased plant samples brought to his clinic by the farmers and accordingly suggests corrective measures to be used. The fields of Punjab, due to indiscriminate fertilizer usage since the advent of green revolution, , have suffered greatly. Mr Narinder helps the farmers in getting their soil tested and advices them on soil reclamation measures for improving soil health status.He also keeps a record of soil types from the different areas for future reference. Presently he is serving 400 farmers of Amritsar & Tarn Taran districts with his consultancy services and quality inputs like pesticides, good quality seeds and fertilizers and employs 2 persons from the village itself in his shop. To get coordinates of Mr Narinder Pal Singh, please mail us at [email protected]
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:01:05 +0000
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