Hi there,
Imagine running a business as well as uplifting the society. Santosh Parulekar has made this dream come true!
Santosh had a dream ?to create a livelihood for rural youth.? And once he co-founded ?Pipal Tree Ventures Pvt. Ltd.? (PTVPL), he realized the construction sector was the way to do it and there has been no turning back. It defies economic logic to hear an entrepreneur say, ?We don?t want to make big profits.? But then the vision of Santosh Parulekar and his business venture Pipal Tree is to create social good, ?not maximise profits.? He started Pipal Tree with a seed capital of Rs. 1 crore. (Rs. 40 lakhs by Santosh Paruleka and Rs. 30 lakhs by his partners each)
Santosh's tryst with rural India began in 2004 when Vistaar, the US-based private equity company he was working for, asked him to find out about the business model of SKS Microfinance, which had pitched for equity funding from Vistaar. He investigated about how Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) worked with rural India. While most of these MFIs intended to create livelihoods for rural women, Santosh, who had spent four years as a corporate banker in Europe for Citibank, discovered they were only acting as financial intermediaries interested in profit maximization.
Harvard Business School alumni, Santosh Parulekar, returned to India to set up Pipal Tree Ventures in 2007, after working abroad for 17 years. He dedicated his life to the cause of generating revenue from social good. His main focus was to end the exploitation of the labor class in construction due to the contractor culture. A few months later, Pipal Tree was born. With the easy part of getting the seed money in place, Santosh mulled over the kind of employment and skills they could provide to these rural youths. He wanted to focus on skills that would be less time consuming and could be easily scaled and would suit the requirement of the rural, semi-literate youth.
The construction industry is huge enough to provide employment (it is the second biggest employer after agriculture) to such a large number of people and it would suit their profile. Since they are conditioned to work hard given that they work on farms and that is why they decided to focus on construction.
They knew that being accountable for the money they would lose would only egg them to make profits in a sustainable way in the future. But they had the conviction that they would make profits based on their business model. They wanted to grow by increasing their turnover but keeping the profit constant at say 10 per cent. The rest of the money they want to roll back into the business to create more livelihoods and attract more people.
It is this vision that made Santosh, quit a well-settled career abroad and scout rural India to find and train young boys for free, and within a month, place them in the construction industry where they?d earn a decent salary. This venture also reaches out to the poor school drop outs in extremist areas.
Normally, most of these boys start with a salary of Rs. 5,200 after completing four weeks of training. After six months on the job, their salary is hiked to Rs. 6,000 and after 12 months they start earning Rs. 6,600. After the 18th month the boys start getting Rs. 7,500 and within two years they start earning Rs. 10,000 per month.
Whenever he had to choose between maximising profits and welfare of the boys and girls Pipal Tree trains and employs, the balance always tilts in favor of the latter. They provide free training, food and accommodation to boys and girls who are trained at the 13 training centers in India. Providing them with safety gear and shoes in case the construction company they work for does not make the provision. They even convince the construction companies to provide provident fund, insurance and basic amenities to the workers. Bearing the cost of insuring workers till the construction companies take them on their rolls.
They also provide cashless mediclaim facilities to their workers by paying their premium out of the profits Pipal Tree makes and facilitating the semi-literate/illiterate family members of the workers avail of the cashless mediclaim by getting in touch with a two-member call centre established for this purpose.
Pipal Tree Ventures work as civil contractors, especially in the field of finishing projects such as plumbing, painting, tiling, electrical, water proofing, false ceiling etc. Till date they have completed many large projects with well-known construction companies such as Tata Housing, Shapoorji Pallonji, Simplex, L&T, Godrej, Lodha, Janapriya, Ashford, Man, NCC Reality, Ramky and many more.
Their main focus is to deliver high quality work at a reasonable cost. To ensure the high quality of work, they have developed a large team of more than 1500 workers working on various skills across India. Due to increase in the demand they also need to ensure that they keep on introducing fresh talent in their existing team. For that reason, they run large number of vocational training schools in many states across India. The students trained at these training centers join their expert teams on construction sites as apprentices. They are provided on the job training and are slowly promoted to the level of skilled workers over time. The same students with around five years of experience are groomed to become site supervisors.
With the quality of valuable information available to students, you are encouraged to share it with your peers, family members and anyone in your society. If you know anyone who?s looking to work in the construction industry, you could refer them to Pipal Tree Ventures Pvt. Ltd. and do your part as a change agent!
" />Hi there,
Imagine running a business as well as uplifting the society. Santosh Parulekar has made this dream come true!
Santosh had a dream ?to create a livelihood for rural youth.? And once he co-founded ?Pipal Tree Ventures Pvt. Ltd.? (PTVPL), he realized the construction sector was the way to do it and there has been no turning back. It defies economic logic to hear an entrepreneur say, ?We don?t want to make big profits.? But then the vision of Santosh Parulekar and his business venture Pipal Tree is to create social good, ?not maximise profits.? He started Pipal Tree with a seed capital of Rs. 1 crore. (Rs. 40 lakhs by Santosh Paruleka and Rs. 30 lakhs by his partners each)
Santosh's tryst with rural India began in 2004 when Vistaar, the US-based private equity company he was working for, asked him to find out about the business model of SKS Microfinance, which had pitched for equity funding from Vistaar. He investigated about how Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) worked with rural India. While most of these MFIs intended to create livelihoods for rural women, Santosh, who had spent four years as a corporate banker in Europe for Citibank, discovered they were only acting as financial intermediaries interested in profit maximization.
Harvard Business School alumni, Santosh Parulekar, returned to India to set up Pipal Tree Ventures in 2007, after working abroad for 17 years. He dedicated his life to the cause of generating revenue from social good. His main focus was to end the exploitation of the labor class in construction due to the contractor culture. A few months later, Pipal Tree was born. With the easy part of getting the seed money in place, Santosh mulled over the kind of employment and skills they could provide to these rural youths. He wanted to focus on skills that would be less time consuming and could be easily scaled and would suit the requirement of the rural, semi-literate youth.
The construction industry is huge enough to provide employment (it is the second biggest employer after agriculture) to such a large number of people and it would suit their profile. Since they are conditioned to work hard given that they work on farms and that is why they decided to focus on construction.
They knew that being accountable for the money they would lose would only egg them to make profits in a sustainable way in the future. But they had the conviction that they would make profits based on their business model. They wanted to grow by increasing their turnover but keeping the profit constant at say 10 per cent. The rest of the money they want to roll back into the business to create more livelihoods and attract more people.
It is this vision that made Santosh, quit a well-settled career abroad and scout rural India to find and train young boys for free, and within a month, place them in the construction industry where they?d earn a decent salary. This venture also reaches out to the poor school drop outs in extremist areas.
Normally, most of these boys start with a salary of Rs. 5,200 after completing four weeks of training. After six months on the job, their salary is hiked to Rs. 6,000 and after 12 months they start earning Rs. 6,600. After the 18th month the boys start getting Rs. 7,500 and within two years they start earning Rs. 10,000 per month.
Whenever he had to choose between maximising profits and welfare of the boys and girls Pipal Tree trains and employs, the balance always tilts in favor of the latter. They provide free training, food and accommodation to boys and girls who are trained at the 13 training centers in India. Providing them with safety gear and shoes in case the construction company they work for does not make the provision. They even convince the construction companies to provide provident fund, insurance and basic amenities to the workers. Bearing the cost of insuring workers till the construction companies take them on their rolls.
They also provide cashless mediclaim facilities to their workers by paying their premium out of the profits Pipal Tree makes and facilitating the semi-literate/illiterate family members of the workers avail of the cashless mediclaim by getting in touch with a two-member call centre established for this purpose.
Pipal Tree Ventures work as civil contractors, especially in the field of finishing projects such as plumbing, painting, tiling, electrical, water proofing, false ceiling etc. Till date they have completed many large projects with well-known construction companies such as Tata Housing, Shapoorji Pallonji, Simplex, L&T, Godrej, Lodha, Janapriya, Ashford, Man, NCC Reality, Ramky and many more.
Their main focus is to deliver high quality work at a reasonable cost. To ensure the high quality of work, they have developed a large team of more than 1500 workers working on various skills across India. Due to increase in the demand they also need to ensure that they keep on introducing fresh talent in their existing team. For that reason, they run large number of vocational training schools in many states across India. The students trained at these training centers join their expert teams on construction sites as apprentices. They are provided on the job training and are slowly promoted to the level of skilled workers over time. The same students with around five years of experience are groomed to become site supervisors.
With the quality of valuable information available to students, you are encouraged to share it with your peers, family members and anyone in your society. If you know anyone who?s looking to work in the construction industry, you could refer them to Pipal Tree Ventures Pvt. Ltd. and do your part as a change agent!
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