‘The Tribune-Chatterati’22nd.March.2010

Bihari’s are all over the world. But now Bihar’s famous snack litti-chokha will soon find place on the plate of US President Barack Obama.
A day after his meeting with US ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer in Patna, Irfan Alam, has been invited to the Entrepreneurship Summit called by Obama. He wants to carry a tin of freshly baked litti with dry chokha, besides a model of his rickshaw, to hand over the President at the White House this April.
Irfan, the 30 year old an IIM-A graduate is the chairman of the SammaN Foundation that works for the upliftment of rickshaw-pullers and their families. There are around 10 million rickshaw-pullers in the country and mainly illiterate and poor. 90% are farm workers who migrate to cities for want of employment. They hire rickshaws and end up with a pittance for themselves.
Irfan got banks to finance rickshaw pullers. He designed rickshaws, which can shelve newspapers, mineral water bottles and other such small items for sale if the passenger needs them. These rickshaws also carry ads and the pullers get 50% of the ad revenue. Irfan, who has gifted a model of his rickshaw to Roemer, started off with 100 such cycles in 2007. Now three lakh rickshaw pullers from across the country are registered with SammaN. The organization also provides books to rickshaw pullers’ children and imparts training in occupational skills to their wives.
Ambanis and Birlas have visited Bihar, but it is Bihari entrepreneurs on whom Bihar has to bank upon for enterprise in the state.