Social Entrepreneurship has always been there.

Pluggd.in has a recently had an article on how sustainable is social entrepreneurship in India.
The author felt that Amul was the only social venture which actually made it big as was reflected in the blog post

How many national scale, socially relevant, market oriented, impact making businesses can you name in India?” is a question that I asked at a recent gathering of friends. This is partly due to the fact that the only answer that springs to my mind is “Amul“, partly out of a certain confidence that the other person too cannot name any other business and partly out of a genuine desire to know. This question has intrigued me for some time now. Why haven’t there been many more Amul’s in our country? God knows there are enough and more social problems to be solved!

And almost instantaneously there were comments from people retorting. One such person said there have been similar groups such as Lijjad Papad and Fabindia.
Though Lijjad papad has received enough publicity, FabIndia on the other hand according to me has been doing brilliantly. Its great how they have created a niche for themselves in the garments industry and have actually made themselves in a huge brand. Generally as is the case you find similar handmade products only in exposition fairs or in some shady corner. FabIndia on the other hand have made it a retail business with chains of FabIndia's all over the country selling high quality really low priced garments. Here is a link into their back ground.