'Trash gave me my identity': Chhattisgarh tribal woman turns discarded paper into brick unit

RAIPUR: In a Janpad Panchayat office in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district, a discarded piece of paper — creased, torn and thrown away like needless scrap — quietly altered the course of a tribal woman’s life in a remote village.

It carried the name of a govt self-employment scheme. For Anjana Oraon, who was, until then, a part-time data entry operator earning Rs 4,000 a month, the scrap of paper became the starting point of a small flyash brick unit kicking off her journey as an entrepreneur.Working at Janpad Panchayat in Khadgawan, Oraon, despite holding a postgraduate degree, earned too little to run a family. When she noticed a torn sheet of paper discarded in the office bin, she read it, kept it, and decided to try her luck under the self-employment scheme. “It was in 2017 when I saw a heap of garbage that the peons had collected after brooming the premises,” Oraon, a resident of village Telga in Baikunthpur, told TOI .It was in 2017 when I saw a heap of garbage that the peons had collected after brooming the premises. I picked up a torn piece of paper that said, ‘take loan under Pradhan Mantri Srijan Swarozgar Yojana and start your own enterprise’. I decided immediately, I will apply for this loan. There was little encouragement at first. Some advised me to approach the district industries centre, others warned me against getting trapped in banks and paperwork.

For a woman with no capital, no business background and no safety net, ambition itself became a liability. But I persisted,” Oraon, a resident of village Telga in Baikunthpur, told TOI.After visiting the district industries centre and touring a fly-ash brick unit in the Podi-Bachra area, she zeroed in on a business that was viable. Fly-ash bricks—linked to the region’s thermal power plants and steady construction demand—offered scale without hype.What followed was a familiar grind: documents, repeated bank visits, loan delays, and social pressure from both her natal and marital families to abandon the idea.“The message was clear even from the bank officials—stick to a “safe” job, however meagre. My husband, Anil Kumar, with no industrial experience, backed the plan. It was after a lot of leg work that a private bank in Baikunthpur, eventually sanctioned a ₹30 lakh loan.

Machines were sourced from neighbouring Katghora, a shed was built, fly-ash procured from Korba, and sand and cement arranged locally," the woman said firmly.Anjana Enterprises opened in Aug 2025 Since then, the unit has produced around 80,000 fly-ash bricks. The monthly loan instalment—about ₹60,000—is being paid regularly, Oraon said. Alongside the unit, the family continues farming paddy and wheat on four acres of land, managing children, elders and work without abandoning any one role for another.With the demand picking up, Oraon now plans to expand capacity, aiming for 15,000 bricks a day and a monthly turnover of ₹6–7 lakh—targets that will be tested by market cycles and cash flow. Calling her a real source of inspiration, Koriya collector Chandan Tripathi told TOI, “Anjana is an example for women who hold themselves back citing lack of means and resources. By making proper use of govt schemes, Anjana is steadily moving forward on the path of becoming a successful entrepreneur that we can deservingly take pride in.

Hers is not just a story but amessage.”She stands as a success story of grassroots women’s empowerment in rural India, and a mindset that can spot opportunity even in what others discard, the Collector said.“The trash gave me my identity,” Oraon said, adding “I filled out the forms, waited through rejection, and made it work—brick by brick.”