SNAP 2007 Question Paper

For the following questions answer them individually

Read the edited excerpt of an article by NELSON VINOD MOSES and answer the questions in this context.

A successful non-resident Indian employed in the United States returns to a backward Indian village and transforms the lives of the villagers. Sounds familiar? At 31, Ashwin Naik is pacing through the path Shah Rukh Khan traced in his off-bear Bollywood movie, Swades. Naik had just quit his cushy job in a genomics firm in the US to join MIT Sloan School of Business. With a month in hand, he headed home a travelled through the remote areas of Bagalkot district in Karnataka. The woeful social conditions he saw moved him. Naik chucked the MBA course and in six months set up Vaatsalya Healthcare, a rural healthcare delivery system. In February 2005, Vaatsalya’s first hospital opened in Hubli. Two more centres were opened in Gadag and Karwar to offer specialist services of surgeons and facilities such as physiotherapy for children suffering from cerebral palsy. “We introduced paediatric surgery for infants below six months,” says Naik. “Else, patients would have to be taken to distant cities of Hubli or Bangalore.” Naik plans 100 more units in five states in the next three years. Mere charity by an affluent, middle-class professional? Far from it. Vaatsalya is one among rapidly spreading ‘for profit’ social enterprises that serve the poor and bring in profit. Mumbai-based Ziqitza, an imbalance services company, is another. It never refuses a patient for money, and charges Rs. 50 to 200. Done fleetingly in India and elsewhere till now, entrepreneurial minds with a social conscience are methodically creating such models at a greater pace. “There has been a boom in the past two years,” says Varun Sahni, country director of Acumen Fund, a US-based social fund that invests in companies that target low income communities. “Currently, there are about 1,000 in India.” The timing seems perfect. There is a wide market acceptance and funding has
been coming in easily. These enterprises work across a swathe of areas including healthcare, education, rural energy, agriculture, arts and crafts, banking and more. ‘For profit’ entrepreneurs are obsessed with social and environmental impact in addition to the financial returns. Since they are answerable to the investors, they try expanding the business rapidly. SKS Microfinance, for instance, started in 1998 and has now over 900,000 customers, 440 branches and an outstanding loan disbursement of over Rs. 452 crores as of August 2007

For the following questions answer them individually