Twenty-year-old Anuj Shakrani is accepting orders of customized costumes from two South Mumbai colleges while speaking to his Kanpur-based young partner-cum-manufacturer over phone

City undergrads turning biz heads

Twenty-year-old Anuj Shakrani is accepting orders of customized costumes from two South Mumbai colleges while speaking to his Kanpur-based young partner-cum-manufacturer over phone. “I have to meet the order for three events by end of October,” reveals Anuj who has to complete his projects and appear for semester exam next month. A second year student of Electricals and Telecom engineering at VJTI, Matunga, Anuj is handling Enquote Merchandising Solutions – a business of made to design apparel, watches, sunglasses etc for corporates, college festivals, sports event and other promotional events. “This is my half introduction,” Anuj says. His other venture -- Pik-a book – which he started along with a classmate, Snehal Grandy, this July is also a hit. Purchasing old books and items from seniors and selling them to juniors touched Rs3.5 lakh revenue. With Rs30,000 profit with the launch they are set to roll out this biz at all major Institutes across India by 2013. Aamir Shaikh – TYBA at Rizvi College of Bandra – is handling an event and wedding planner company--Evolutions events-- which he started couple of months ago with a swanky office at Fort. He has already bagged projects of worth Rs10 lakh that includes college event Jashn-e-Rizvi. City students are becoming more and more innovative now. Although, the business capital of the country is known for encouraging college-going students to start earning much early as compared to their peers in other cities, most of them go for part-time jobs barring few who work in family-run businesses. Prof MA Farooqui, director of IT at University of Mumbai, says, “Confident youngsters are ready to take risk now.” Early start-ups are profitable too. Shanay Shah and Akhil Aryan started ‘Ion Education’ in 2010 when they were still studying FYBCom at HR College. Edutainment company, which provides online interactive education, has net profit of Rs25 lakh in the last financial year.