Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 | From ‘Navpravartan’ to near-stagnation: Chanpatia’s startup dream that busted

Chanpatia (Bihar): When the Covid lockdown brought India to a halt in 2020, thousands of migrant workers from Bihar were forced to return home - jobless, anxious, and uncertain about their future. The entire country witnessed those heartbreaking scenes of daily wage workers and labourers in desperate attempts to reach their homes walking thousands of miles if they did not get any mode to reach the place they call - home.

These workers were both skilled and semi-skilled and despite that they had no other option, but to leave the cities as they were mostly on hand-to-mouth mode of livelihood. For a state like Bihar, where migration to cities like Surat, Ludhiana, and Delhi had long been a way of life, the reverse flow of workers presented an unprecedented challenge of ensuring a livelihood to these returnees.

During that period, an idea took root in Bihar, one that inspired hope across the state. In December 2020, the “Navpravartan Startup Zone” was launched in a small town called Chanpatia in North-West Bihar. The concept was bold: turn returning migrants into entrepreneurs. What began as a crisis response soon became a celebrated model of local innovation - a “Chanpatia model” that promised to marry self-reliance with rural industrialisation.

The official records paint a picture of optimism. The district administration, under pressure to manage both the health crisis and the sudden influx of returnees, created a participatory model. Through Udyami Mitra Mandals, returnees with industry experience were encouraged to set up production units. A 20-acre industrial space was developed, warehouses were repurposed into plug-and-play manufacturing units, and modern machines - from computerised embroidery setups to laser-operated beading systems - were imported. This is how the official website of the project describes it. But a DH reality check reveals a different picture after five years of its existence. 

Idrish Ansari, proprietor of Everlike Sports India, narrates the journey of these five years as the one that started on high but soon began to see decline. He says, 'The administration did help the entrepreneurs in giving them space and setting up the facility but soon that support vanished. Unit heads have to run from pillar to post for even the smallest of things.'

Ansari also mentioned how the praises that went to the District Magistrate to initiate the startup zone did not go well with the politicians and they did not do anything that would have made the businesses operating from there grow.

There are few others who feel the same. One technical problem faced by the units operating from there is the lease of the land. All of them were given the space on lease for three years initially, but very few could get it renewed. Now, they are in a situation when banks are not lending them money because the space is not leased to them. The land currently belongs to the agriculture department which is not allowing the fresh lease.

At its peak, Chanpatia’s startup zone housed 57 production units, running over 400 machines, selling items worth Rs 15 crore across India and even exporting to other countries. More than 1.3 lakh trousers, a lakh leggings, and lakhs of sanitary pads and masks were produced here, an inspiring story of “Aapda mein Avsar,” or opportunity amid adversity.

But five years on, that inspiration has dimmed.

Today, the once-bustling sheds are quiet. Traders and unit owners claim that fewer than ten units are operational although official numbers may say something else. Shailesh Rao who runs his enterprise named Siya Sundar from the startup zone has advanced machinery, but those machines are not operating as he does not have enough orders and hence can not employ more than five people in his facility which once had more than 35 workers.

The same entrepreneurs who once hailed the project as life-changing now express frustration - citing lack of consistent government support at the local level, bureaucratic delays, and absence of marketing and logistical aid. Rao also mentioned that not even once district administration tried to connect the units in the startup zone with potential buyers and whatever customers they had was due to their own personal outreach in the market.

A unit named Jeeshan Jeans, which once had more than hundred skilled labourers working under one roof now has a deserted look. The owner says it is difficult to feed for his own family now, how can he provide for his staff. The irony is hard to miss here. The very project that aimed to stop migration is today seeing its entrepreneurs considering moving back to the cities they once left behind.

The decline of Chanpatia’s startup zone underscores a deeper question about sustainability. Also, the speed at which it has declined is also surprising as they all agree that the first couple of years they all were in profits and all of a sudden things took drastic turns. Vision and innovation may have launched it, but without long-term policy support, in credit, marketing, and infrastructure, such experiments struggle to endure.

As Bihar enters election season, Chanpatia’s story resonates beyond. It raises a larger question for policymakers: can a state truly become self-reliant on hope alone, or must it build systems that nurture and sustain that hope long after the cameras move away? Because here in Chanpatia, the machines have slowed down, but the message remains loud and clear: hope alone can’t run an economy.