A large number of women entrepreneurs in India are writing their success stories with full warmth, passion, and zeal. One such story is that of Sonu Bala from Haryana’s Rewari district.
Lecturer by profession, it was not easy for her to start her own centre, as her husband was against the idea. Luckily, she was shortlisted to open a Common Service Centre (CSC) and that changed everything. After getting shortlisted, her husband also agreed and now he is her backbone.
Sonu Bala runs a CSC centre in Gurawara village in Haryana’s Rewari district. The centre caters to almost five to six neighbouring villages.
“Starting from a small lab in Gram Sachivalaya, I have come a long way and now I have constructed my own CSC building. I purchased the land and built a multi-story building worth Rs 25 lakh for our CSC centre. Rural BPO centre has been opened up in my CSC which was inaugurated by Union Minister of Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad last year, said Sonu.
She started her career as a Computer Science lecturer in a government college in Rewari which was 25 km away from her village. She left the job after five years for her new venture. Sonu says her elder brother encouraged her when she said that she wanted to study.
Sonu Bala is popularly known as the ‘CSC Role Model’. Sonu Bala said that she could achieve this because of her family’s support. “As I did not want to do a private job, I thought I should start a business of my own and the idea of CSC came to me. A woman should not be dependent on her father or husband. She should be given a chance to work according to her talent and interest,” Sonu said.
Her mother wanted Sonu to work in the government sector but destiny has written something else for her.
Sonu is the most educated Village Level Entrepreneur having degrees of MCA, M.Phil (Computer Science), and M.Ed. Her aim was to provide ICT-enabled solutions to the people in the village so that they don’t have to travel far to the cities. She started her CSC centre in 2015 by providing Aadhaar cards only, but gradually her centre started providing all the services to the people of the villages.
“For people in rural areas, it is not easy to travel to the city and wait for long hours in the queue to get their certificates done. Now with the CSCs, they don’t have to go to the city,” adds Sonu.
In 2018, she distributed pension enrollments worth Rs 1.17 lakh through DigiPay to senior citizens, widows, and persons with disabilities.
“In 2015, when I started my CSC, I had only 3 personal computers and now I own more than 20 computers.”, says Sonu Bala. With CSC, her financial condition has improved a lot and her income has increased four-folds.
Sonu says that everyone calls her ‘Aadhaar wali Madam Ji’ and ‘Pension wali Madam Ji’ in the village. “Through CSC, I have earned huge respect and trust from the villagers and nothing matters above this, not even money. Serving the people and society gives me inner satisfaction,” she says.
According to Sonu, when she opened her CSC centre she faced a lot of problems initially and she had even given a bribe to get her electricity meter fixed and now she is in a position that she can easily help people in getting all their problems fixed. She says Dr Dinesh Tyagi, CEO of CSC SPV Pvt Ltd, is my guru and also a source of inspiration for all the VLEs. India is now a digital literate country, she says.