At first light, when the sugarcane fields of Deoria in Uttar Pradesh are still wrapped in a soft haze and the day’s punishing heat hasn’t yet descended, a faint mechanical hum slices through the morning silence. Standing at the edge of the field, 36-year-old Seema Gupta lifts a bulky agricultural drone into the air. It rises steadily before gliding over the crop in neat, calculated arcs, releasing a fine mist of pesticide over acres of farmland. A few years ago, Gupta’s mornings unfolded very differently. They revolved around her family’s paan shops or meetings of a self-help group. Today, she loads the drone onto an e-rickshaw before dawn and heads from farm to farm as a NaMo Drone Didi and agricultural drone pilot, offering precision pesticide-spraying services to farmers across the district.
Her story mirrors a transformation sweeping through Purvanchal. Across Eastern Uttar Pradesh, women are stepping into businesses once considered firmly outside their domain—from agricultural drone pilots and photographers to founders of digital libraries and social media agencies. Many of them have found support through Jagriti Sewa Sansthan, an NGO that mentors entrepreneurs across the region, helping them access funding, training and networks at the grassroots. “I wanted to work so that I never have to stand empty handed in front of my husband for money,” Gupta says, her eyes following the drone as it disappears over the green canopy. “The money I earn enables me to also fulfill a few of my own wishes,” she adds with a smile.
The journey, however, was anything but effortless. Even with her family’s support, Gupta found herself battling widespread scepticism. Neighbours questioned whether a woman could operate heavy machinery. Farmers were reluctant to hire her. It was only after Jagriti helped create an ecosystem connecting trained drone pilots with local farmers that work began flowing in.
About 50 km away in Gorakhpur, another entrepreneur was solving a very different problem. When Nutan Singh, now 40, was preparing for competitive examinations years ago, she struggled to find a quiet place to study. Libraries were scarce, and distractions at home were unavoidable. She decided to build the kind of space she had once needed. She converted part of her home into a digital library. Today, students quietly file into its cubicles, plug in their laptops, connect to the Wi-Fi and settle into hours of uninterrupted study, at Rs 100 an hour. What began with just 20 seats has now expanded to nearly 60. “Earning my own money has positively impacted my confidence and thinking,” Singh says.
Women are stepping into businesses once considered firmly outside their domain—from agricultural drone pilots and photographers to founders of digital libraries and social media agencies
For 20-year-old Kashish Verma, entrepreneurship meant refusing to follow a script. While many of her peers moved from school to college with the promise of a stable job ahead, Verma chose a different road. Today, she runs a social media agency in Gorakhpur—a decision that, she says, has given her far more than an income. “If you earn your own money, society attaches more respect and value to you,” she says while travelling on her first solo trip to Sikkim.
Her entrepreneurial journey began in school through an entrepreneurship club associated with Jagriti. The organisation equipped her with a laptop, mentorship and an initial grant of Rs 1.1 lakh. Instead of enrolling in college, Verma devoted herself entirely to growing the business. Within a year, she had doubled the grant to Rs 2.08 lakh. The shift, says Shilpi Singh, a manager at Jagriti Sewa Sansthan, reflects the organisation’s larger mission. “In this age of startups, we want to build an alternate profession in the region,” she says. The entrepreneurial shift is equally visible among younger women. Vanshika Gupta, a 21-year-old B.Com student from Deoria, had always enjoyed taking photographs on her phone but had never imagined it could become a career. “I didn’t know female photographers existed,” she says. Everything changed after attending a workshop organised by Jagriti, where she learnt to operate a professional camera. Two years later, she photographs weddings and events across Deoria and neighbouring districts. But convincing others proved harder than mastering the camera. “Photography is a profession that demands physical endurance, late nights outside, and technical work—and hence, in Purvanchal, it is assumed to be reserved for men,” she says.
Acceptance came gradually, through months of conversations between Jagriti’s mentors and her family. Today, curiosity has replaced disbelief. “At weddings, women often come up to me and say that I am the first female photographer they have seen,” Gupta reflects. Her ambition now extends beyond personal success. She hopes to build an all-women photography team and invest in a new camera as her business grows.
Though their businesses are vastly different, the women arrive at the same destination: financial independence. For them, money is not merely about income—it is the freedom to make decisions, pursue ambitions and shape their own futures.