eJeevika HR Pvt. Ltd. has initiated the training of villagers that enables them to secure jobs in services sectors like retail, business process outsourcing and security services.

Objective: To bridge the urban-rural divide in India. First, they identify entrepreneurs through village council heads, non-profits and self-help groups. Once identified, they offer them a franchise.

Vidhya Sivaramakrishnan explains in this article in the Mint:

The entrepreneur invests some Rs50,000 on a couple of personal computers, a broadband Internet connection and power back-up.
The franchisees then identify potential candidates who are then trained by eJeevika according to the requirements of its clients.
For now, eJeevika has developed training modules for security services, retail and business process outsourcing and would develop modules for other sectors depending on client requirements.

And how do villagers go about availing this training?

Villagers who wish to be trained register with eJeevika’s website after which the company conducts an online interview in the presence of its client. Once the client gives a go-ahead sign, the candidate pays a fee and undergoes online training.

We believe this is a good initiative to address the labour shortage problem and to enable villagers with limited information-access to take on a direct role in the emerging industries of India.
One of the persons interviewed in the article echoes this sentiment of ours:

“India requires innovations like these,” said Ravi Narayan, managing director at Mentor Partners, that works closely with start-ups. “IT (information technology) as a business model has become passé. How one uses IT to scale up is what many companies have increasingly started to look at.”

Of course there are certain constraints that the company is aiming to resolve soon, but overall they have shown some degree of success already, as the article says:

The firm has successfully piloted its model in Cuddalore and Tiruvallur districts of Tamil Nadu, she said. EJeevika trained and placed some 100 candidates with the help of a network of 20 franchisees in a few retailers and security services firms

Read the complete article here.

Credit: Link provided by Arjun Rao. Thanks!
Image from Mint

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