Srinagar (Jammu Kashmir): While unemployment in Kashmir valley has risen sharply in recent times, local youth are being encouraged to start their own businesses.
Two siblings from Srinagar's Shalimar area have started their own bakery shop - The Bloom Bakers - with an aim to provide quality and authentic food. The brothers, Shahid and Sameer Pandit were earlier working in Dubai.
Following their desire to start their own business, they left Dubai and started their own business first in Gurgaon and then in the Valley.
Shahid Pandit who has a Master's degree in Business Administration from the Central University of Kashmir was working in Jammu and Kashmir Bank. However, his heart was never into the desk job and eventually called it a day to join his brother Sameer in Dubai.
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Sameer was working as a manager in a well-known restaurant in Dubai. Shahid, in Dubai, worked for a multinational company for five years and then decided to start a business in Delhi with his brother.
In January 2019, the Pandit brothers along with a friend opened a bakery in the National Capital Region (Gurgaon). However, the initiative was not successful and had to be closed within nine months.
"We were unsuccessful, the whole investment was lost. We had only two options. The first was to go back to Dubai and the second one was come to Kashmir and start all over again. We chose the later," said Shahid.
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“We knew working in the valley would not be easy but we had full confidence in ourselves and our hard work. After failing, we learned the journey of life, after which we had nothing to lose, " he added.
Echoing his brother's view Sameer said that, "After returning to the valley, we found a small room in the courtyard of our house in the Shalimar area. And started our own bakery called 'The Bloom Bakers'."
"The pandemic badly affected our work but we never lost hope and waited for the right time. As soon as the situation improved, we resumed our work," he said, adding that they are planning to further extension to their bakery.
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Today, the bloom bakers caters to most of the department stores of the city and have expertise in designer cakes, cookies, bread etc.
