by
For Financial Express, India
photo caption: In 2011, Comvision diversified its technology infrastructure to offer traffic management segment solutions in the transport sector.
A story on IWEC Foundation Board Member, Harjinder Kaur, CEO Comvision India
Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: If you often drive long distances with a FASTag sticker on your vehicle’s windshield, chances are for once you must have crossed automated toll plazas managed by Comvision India. Harjinder Kaur Talwar, the company’s founder, started out as an entrepreneur when she was only 23 back in 1995, the time when it was almost impossible for women to get bank loans by themselves. So, Talwar had to onboard her father as a business partner to secure a bank loan worth Rs 3 lakh to launch Comvision India, a computer-training service provider then for corporates. However, the market wasn’t ready at that time as very few large businesses showed interest in IT-related training.
In between, Talwar also tried her hand at the e-governance sector in India to tweak the business model. Based in Hyderabad in 1999, Talwar approached the Andhra Pradesh government for an opportunity to develop backend technology solutions to deliver various government-to-citizen (G2C) services such as driving licenses, birth certificates and other municipal services under a common roof instead of citizens approaching different government departments. The state government allowed Talwar to test her solution with a TWINS project that allowed citizens to access those services electronically at G2C centres, similar to Common Service Centres that exist today.“This model acted as a blueprint for other states to look at. It was also showcased to the then President of the US, Bill Clinton on his first visit to India in 2000. But what I learnt as an entrepreneur was that earning money through a business isn’t a cakewalk contrary to what I had assumed before starting the business. I couldn’t even repay the loan to the bank,” Talwar told Financial Express Online.