These 5 IAS Women Officers Are a Source of Inspiration to All Indian Girls

Meena Bindra got married when she was 20 years old. She then had two sons and got busy taking care of kids and family.

She was creative, though and took up dress designing as a hobby. Then it became a source of pocket money for her. Starting a business was never her plan, though.

She says, "When I started designing clothes as a hobby to earn some pocket money, I never dreamt of becoming a businesswoman!"

However, she had courage and passion. "If you have the passion for something, just do it," she says. And that's exactly what she did!

She took up a loan of Rs 8000 and launched the brand BIBA, a brand specializing in salwar kameez and kurtas.

In 2004, Biba opened its first outlet in a Mumbai mall. In March 2012, BIBA's annual revenues stood at Rs 300 crore. And by 2020, BIBA was a 600-crore business venture!

On her way to become a successful businesswoman, there were so many myths that Meera proved wrong.....

• **A woman cannot have a career as well as a family: Meena was married and a mum to two sons when she started her business. She has her husband's support. He helped her get her first loan to start the business. **Her sons later joined her business and helped her run it.

• One needs to be young and start early to be successful in business:** **Meena was almost 40 when she decided to launch BIBA.

• **Creativity doesn't pay. One needs a business degree to start a business: **Meena had no earlier experience of running a business or working in a corporate set-up when she started designing clothes.

  In fact, Meena was a self-taught designer. She had no formal degree in either dress designing or business. It was her determination, passion, hard work and creativity all the way.

• You need to be wealthy to start your own business or be a part of a business family:** **Meena's husband was in the Navy. She took a loan to start her business.

Vibha Harish suffered from PCOD as a teen. But rather than a complaint about it, she used it as a learning experience to start her own company of herbal cosmetics

Vibha was a teenager when she started suffering from severe PCOD. This resulted in severe hair fall and acne as well as irregular periods. She visited many doctors and underwent many treatments. But nothing worked.

Worried about her daughter's health, her mother started mixing ayurvedic powders like Ashwagandha and Shatavari in her food. Within a few months, Vibha could feel the difference in her health.

Over a period of time, her hair-fall reduced, and periods regularised. This experience left Vibha impressed with the power of herbal products and Ayurveda.

As ayurvedic medicines helped her cure her condition, she thought of formulating ayurvedic products and selling them.

Driven by her thought of starting something of her own, Vibha left her corporate job. This was her first step to success.

The next step was getting to know the field in depth.

So she started interacting with herbal practitioners from different parts of the world. From the USA to Singapore, she spoke with everyone and gained tremendous knowledge about this field.

Along with that, she took guidance from her mother.

Vibha was so determined that she took a course on Herbalism too. Then she visited different farms in Karnataka to formulate her own herbal products.

With sufficient knowledge and information, Vibha Harish launched her own herbal nutrition and plant-based supplement company. She called it Cosmix.

The main goal of Cosmix was to make products to improve health and immunity in women.

Within one year, Cosmix registered a turnover of around Rs 2 crore!

Just when it seemed that everything was going well, the Covid Pandemic hit.

During this Pandemic, Vibha's business came to hold. Due to the safety reasons of her employees, she gave her business a short break.

But she did not stop her work during that period. She noticed that children between three to six years of age are not getting proper nutrition.

"Earlier, these children, living in rural areas of Karnataka, were part of mid-day meal schemes which ensured daily nutrition. However, once schools were shut, they were unable to eat nutritious food. Some of them were even malnourished," she said.

That's when Vibha decided to start the programme - Nutrition for All. Through this programme, food and energy bars are given to malnourished children in rural India.

Last checked, around 2,50,000 bars were distributed to 1400 children. Vibha used part of the company's profits to fund the "Nutrition for All" programme

Vibha's ambition and her desire to do something different is really an inspiration to girls today.

Just like Vibha, there are also so many young girls who are thinking out of the box and doing different things.

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