BENGALURU: Her days are as busy, or should we say busier, than they were during her service as an IAS officer. K Ratna Prabha, who rose to the rank of chief secretary before retiring in June 2018 after 37 years, continues to immerse herself in several initiatives post retirement. Closest to her is empowering women, which she is striving hard to do through UBUNTU (meaning ‘I am, because you are’ in Zulu). This is an all-women consortium that helps women entrepreneurs face challenges amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We want to strengthen women by helping them scale up their businesses and amplify entrepreneur dynamism at both state and national level. It’s about creating a conducive women entrepreneurship ecosystem in India,” she says, adding, “We want to make the associations strong rather than going directly to entrepreneurs. Currently, we have 24 associations from six states, and 15,000 members on the platform.” They provide business advisory services and support to women entrepreneurs and SMEs.
In association with the United Nations Development Programme, Karnataka, UBUNTU led a project named ‘Covid-19 Udyog Sahayavani’ and set up an MSME Udyog Sahayavani help desk for a period of six months. The consortium has also signed an MoU with Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) to help women entrepreneurship grow in the country. With this, UBUNTU will provide the ecosystem support for GAME’s ‘Xcelerator Bengaluru’ programme and expand its activities to more districts in Karnataka.
Despite being the first woman in many of her postings, Prabha says she never faced any sort of gender discrimination. “There’s competition no doubt, but that’s in every field. There’s no measure of success without competition, and that requires one to work hard to get recognised,” she says. She speaks from personal experience, pointing to the fight for the post of chief secretary when she was to take over.
“There was a sense of insecurity from male colleagues who didn’t like it. But that’s a mindset that has to change. But I don’t let myself be bothered by such things,” says Prabha, who was Karnataka’s third woman chief secretary after Teresa Bhattacharya (2000) and Malati Das (2006). At the same time, she emphasises that men have played a crucial part in UBUNTU. “There was this one programme when former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he would come for five minutes and ended up spending more than an hour. So whether it’s Congress MLA RV Deshpande or current Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, all of them have given us a boost,” she says.
Soon after retirement, Prabha took over as chairperson of Skill Development Authority but things have been slow paced since Covid-19 hit in March. “Every time I think I need some time and space, I find myself thinking of work,” says Prabha, who admittedly loves being burdened with work. She hails from a family of high achievers – her father; husband, K Vidyasagar, and brother being civil servants, and her mother and brother both being doctors.
But today, Prabha feels, the options aren’t restricted to medicine, engineering or teaching. Like her daughter, a writer who has been associated with Hindi and Telugu shows, has multiple interests – short films and chocolate making, among others. “My family is very creative,” says Prabha, who has also authored a book, Chronicles of an AC Saab. “My son, on the other hand, is a lawyer who is mostly involved only in his job,” she says.