Butwal, November 13:

Pabitra BK has madeher money from scrap, literally. In the process, she also got smarter. Now, she owns property worth a million.

Till fours years ago, she washed dishes in others’ houses for a monthly wage of Rs 500. She went into business with an investment of just Rs 50.

She began trading in broken goods, used plastic, sacks and waste paper from a shed attached to a toilet at the Old Bus Park. She has four workers whom she gives daily meals and Rs 150 wage per head a day. She said some scrap collectors put stones and soil in the sack to make their booty heavier. “This forced me to become smarter than them,” she said. Locals and people from other places and other districts also sell her scrap goods. She pays well for the scrap goods and because she does not know how to calculate or measure weights, she has hired literate workers.

She makes immediate payments to scrap collectors. Not only that, she even arranges for their treatment if they fall ill and also provides them advance in times of need. She said some collectors at times even bring stolen goods.

Pabitra trades in scrap worth Rs 5,000 daily. and earns Rs 40,000 a month. She bought a plot of land worth Rs 5 lakh at Traffic Chowk and built a house worth Rs 4 lakh. She did all of it from her earnings over the past four years. She has already bought for Rs 160,000 the plot of land on which she is running her business.