Dhanbad: Need an instant fix to liven up your mood? Take your pick from the nine varieties of tea available at the new fast food outlet in front the IIT(ISM) main gate.
A group of nine students and an alumnus of the tech institute has opened the outlet called Sadda Campus as part of a start-up initiative, which is doing brisk business with over 100-150 customers visiting it daily.
Besides nine varieties of tea - spicy green chilly, ginger, gur, vanilla, Irani, lemon, pudina and tulsi - priced in the range of Rs 10 to Rs 35, the outlet dishes out vada pav, dabeli, muska bun, noodles, pasta and French fries. Vada pav is priced at Rs 20-25, dabeli Rs 20-30 while muska bun costs somewhere between Rs 20 and Rs 25.
Rajat Agarwal, BTech second year mathematics and computing student of IIT(ISM) and a part of the project, said, "The start-up was launched way back in 2015 by Saurabh Kabra, then a BTech final year student who is currently working at BCCL, and Sparsh Chaudhary, a fifth-year student of the dual degree programme in computer science engineering, to provide quality food to the students by tying up with different restaurants of the town. Customers could order food using a mobile app. We gradually expanded our activity and launched this outlet on March 12 as more students started joining the group."
Rajat said besides him, Saurabh and Sparsh, the group had six members - three second-year students Devesh Anand, Shubham Vishwakarma (computer science engineering) and Dhiraj Patel (electronic engineering) and three BTech third-year students Ankit Kashyap, Aman Patel and Shubham Gora.
They have hired five cooks from Dhanbad to make tea and rustle up the dishes. The outlet remains open from 1pm to 11pm.
Colourful message boards with catchy captions like " pyar ek dhoka hai (love is a deception)", "padharo maro desh (visit my country)" and "just chill" written in funky fonts impart a youthful charm to the ambience.
"Our aim is to provide quality food rather than quantity. We offer those foods that are not commonly available in Dhanbad," Rajat said, adding that through this initiative, they want to propagate the idea that entrepreneurship is a better option for educated youths than making a beeline for jobs.
A.K. Pandey, a private nursing home owner who visited Sadda Campus on Thursday, said, "The tea tastes very good and the ambience is nice too. I appreciate the endeavour, but would suggest that the students should slightly reduce the prices of tea."
Akhilesh Kumar, a private firm employee, found the vada pav tasty. "I am a big fan of vada pav, which is available at a very few stalls in Dhanbad."
Do you think the state's start-up ecosystem is well-developed? Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com
