Kudumbashree - Taking care of pets and earning livelihood: Success Story of Pet Hostel

Kudumbashree Mission always try to introduce innovative business ideas in its livelihood sector.  Pet care has good scope as a service sector enterprise. The Artificial Insemination Centre and Pet hostel located at Alangad in Ernakulam district of Kerala is one such initiative. The Pet Hostel unit provides the best pet care services like dog boarding, dog breeding, pet day care, vaccination and other similar services for domestic animals. 

Kudumbashree Mission had always been keen in animal husbandry development, and established the Artificial insemination centre on a pilot basis as a business model at Ernakulam district of Kerala. Artificial insemination is a powerful tool mostly employed for livestock improvement and the entrepreneurship in this sector is comparatively low. Kudumbashree Mission always try to encourage these kinds of innovative enterprises.

Evolution of Artificial Insemination Centre and Pet hostel

This unit was evolved as a subsidiary of Animal Birth Control Unit. It was started by a group of 5 women. Later in 2017, due to personal reasons the unit broke up and only one member remained in the unit and it was Smt. Priya. When everyone else selected some other livelihood options, Priya was very determined to continue with her enterprise as she had studied Vocational Higher Secondary with specialization in Livestock management.

Priya, after completing her studies had not received any job or livelihood opportunities and she remained as housewife for more than 5 years. She always wanted to do something, which could give her a reasonable income to support her family.  The turning point in Priya’s life as an entrepreneur happened when she came across schemes and programmes of Kudumbashree Mission during a meeting held in the Community Development Society. In that meeting she learned about some innovative project ideas and the next day she met Kudumbashree officials at Kudumbashree Ernakulam District Mission to get more information about the same.

She was well determined and started an individual enterprise exclusively for domestic animals. Her confidence and determination made everything possible and support from district mission paved way for it.  The enterprise team in the district office offered her full support and according to her, it is the major turning point in her life. The day when the officials from Kudumbashree Ernakulam District Mission gave assurance to make her dream into reality is the most remarkable and happiest moment of her life as an entrepreneur. Priya had always dreamt of starting her own business related to her academics. Apart from entrepreneurship training and other handholding support, the Mission provided an initial working capital of Rs. 50,000 as start-up fund for establishing the unit.  The entrepreneur is now earning an amount of Rs. 15,000 per month.

Pet care Centre demands more publicity and change in pet care culture. This service is well accepted in elite society only, so demand creation is the challenging part in pet care service.  The effective implementation of the artificial insemination is depended on the fertilization power of the receptive animal and hence the success rate also varies. There are possibilities for failure also, if it fails the entrepreneur has to do the procedure again without charging any additional service fee.

Priya plans to establish a fish culture Centre and sales of animal feed as part of her enterprise. The broad objective of the Mission is to scale up this enterprise in all Urban local bodies with transportation and website facilities. Priya is an example for women empowerment and self-motivation, her social commitment and willpower to face negative situation with ease is really remarkable and admirable. She can be considered a better embodiment of self-confidence and well power. Kudumbashree Mission is keeping on fueling the dreams of as many women in the society and are turning them into ‘Superwoman’!