REACH – Social Entrepreneurship Case

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

Indian women fight poverty with smokeless stoves

A third to half of the world’s population – that’s two to three billion people folks – cook with small stoves burning wood, charcoal, dung and coal. The resulting pollution kills 1.6 million of them every year. On top of that pretty scary figure are the unknown number of babies that roll onto cooking fires, the untold devastation to the land by deforestation, the millions of tons of CO2 in the air…on and on, it’s a bitter toll.

Cooking is an essential activity carried out by women in every household. In most poor, rural households, this is done on traditional stoves that require large amounts of firewood, takes a long time to cook and releases a lot of smoke which is injurious to the health of the family. For years, industrial designers, NGO’s and activists in the developing world have battled to make more sustainable devices acceptable and used on a mass scale. In India, where hundreds of millions of people are dependent on wood or dung fires, the government is promoting more sustainable cookers. But these initiatives are usually top down and so don’t always make an easy transition from the easel of an urban designer to the mud floor of a village kitchen.

Most of the government initiatives promote stoves costing around Rs 1100 – too much for the average village household. And in the past, these initiatives comprised of groups of men going from village to village installing complicated stoves and then going home, so when they broke down, there was no one in the village who knew how to repair them. Also, studies showed that most village women were reluctant to seek outside male help in what was essentially a problem for women in the home.

TIDE is an organization in Karnataka that figured out that it would be better to work directly with the users – they adapted their household cookers according to the demands of the users themselves. They decided to employ women to build and sell the stoves and immediately the numbers of stoves - being sold for Rs 350 a piece - increased. The devices were sold by women who installed them for a small fee inclusive in the total price. And each builder also trained local women how to maintain the cookers.

Objectives of the Project

To reduce women's drudgery in firewood collection and improve health through the construction of fuel efficient smokeless stoves in select villages

To create income generation opportunities for rural women trained in household stove construction

About TIDE

TIDE is a not-for-profit society whose mandate is to identify technologies and assess them for their suitability of environment. It identifies applications for technologies and customizes tech to suit the local conditions where it is to be disseminated. TIDE has been funded by Government at the district, state and central government levels and by international and bilateral funding agencies.

The firm has a strong focus on technology and has very competent technical teams in each of its areas of work. The technical teams comprise of qualified management professionals, engineers, scientists, social scientists and journalists. In addition, many consultants who are experts in their chosen area of work are associated with TIDE. It also has a competent field team to work on its technology dissemination projects.

Some of the areas of work that TIDE is currently engaged in are renewable energy technologies, technologies for informal process industries, water and environmental management, women and livelihoods and building local entrepreneurships. In its 10 years of existence, the society has obtained funds of Rs. 83 Million for 80 Projects, explored over 15 innovative ideas and nurtured 14 entrepreneurs. It has more than 5000 energy efficient stoves installed for rural process industries.

Details about Sarala Stove

The improved stove that would be installed would be the Sarala stove which is a two pan stove with a single fuel feeding port. It was developed at ASTRA (now Center for Sustainable Technologies, IISc) as a consequence to the user response to its earlier version, the ASTRA stove. As its name suggests, the Sarala stove is a simple stove: simple to build, maintain and user. It uses local materials, mud bricks etc, a cast iron grate and a chimney. It should be affordable by large sections of rural population but there are always more pressing demands on their limited resources. Consequently women tend to put off or delay adoption often at the cost of their health.

How TIDE went about it

TIDE identified select villages in the Tiptur / Gubbi region of Tumkur district of Karnataka for this initiative. Discussions were done with the gram panchayats of these villages. As soon as a donor was found for the scheme, the field staff of TIDE would hold village level meetings to put into motion the creation of smokeless villages. The cost of the stove was expected to be Rs 350 (about US$ 8.75) and the household would make an in-kind contribution of about Rs. 50/stove.

As a part of its energy linked livelihood projects for women, TIDE trained several women in the construction of smokeless stoves. These women construct stoves for a fee and augment their incomes through stove construction especially in the lean agricultural season. These trained women stove builders would be the change agents for the creation of smokeless villages. They would be given contracts for the construction and maintenance of stoves in a particular village.

Funds required

Approximately Rs 30,000 (US$ 750) per village of 100 households. But there would be smaller and larger villages and the cost is only indicative

Particulars Amount(in Rs)Cost of 100 stoves @Rs 350/stove (inclusive of training costs and monitoring )

35000

User Contribution: in-kind - @ Rs. 50/stove 5000Funds required 30000

TIDE’s director, Svati Bhogle tells the story of 2 women from Tumkur district (100 km from Bangalore), Katyani and Lalita Bai, who used to work in the fields and benefited from the project. Katyani hails from Shivasandra village and has so far installed more than 4,000 stoves through different projects of TIDE. Having been through many hurdles of caste discrimination, she has now gained respect as being independent in the eyes of her community. Katyani, with the help of her husband, has now invested in the arecanut business and is expecting good returns on the same. Her bigger dream is to set up a business employing women in her community and start the production of files and folders of arecanut leaves to be supplied to the urban market in Bangalore.

Katyani says – “I have learnt that if I have the willingness to do anything, then I can. All I need is the confidence and little guidance. If we think we are women and sit at home and be home makers, we forever will be homemakers! It is time we look beyond home and be independent and become successful like men.”

Coming from a remote village near Tumkur district which is caste and gender biased Katyani has emerged as a role model for other women in the village. Never had Katyani left her district to pursue work orders but now she says – it does not matter where we are working as long there is business and we can deliver it. For the last one year Katyani has installed about 800 stoves out of which 300 stoves in Belgaum in North Karnataka using her resources and network, she organized the entire team and also got a certificate of appreciation from the government of Karnataka for her commendable work.

Katyani from working alone now has a team of 4 members employed from the local village itself. For the last year she has increased the number of stoves installed from 650 to 800 per year. She has learnt how to go about reducing overhead costs during installation by increasing her little profit margin. She has got an order to install 5500 smokeless stoves in the last 10 months. Another 7000 smokeless stoves installation order is pending for Katyani and her team’s acceptance and execution. District Forest Officer, Belgaum - Government of Karnataka - has given an order of 5000 stove for the coming months.

She signed up to be a stove builder because she wanted to earn the money to send her daughter to Teachers Training School. She went from village to village, built up such a successful business that not only did she get her daughter educated but now manages her own stove installation business. She minds her grandchildren at home, managing her two or three workers from her mobile phone.

LalithaBai

Smt. Lalithabai, aged about 45 years, lives in H.Muddenahalli Tandya in Tiptur taluk. She was married to Sri Lalya Naik at the age of 20 and has one daughter and two sons. She earned her living working in quarries and as agricultural labour. She has been building smokeless stoves of TIDE and so far has installed more than 10,000 stoves in villages of Karnataka.

Hard working and committed to inclusive growth by helping others is her personal mission. Lalithabai felt being illiterate wouldn't allow her to realize her dreams. She preferred to hide behind this mask of ignorance. However, once in conversation this is certainly not the impression she leaves you with when you meet this dynamic woman. She realised that she needs to accept the fact that she may be illiterate but has achieved what many others have not.

As a step to overcome her inhibition Lalithabai started taking classes from her daughter to learn how to read and write and now instead of putting a thumb impression, she puts her signature!

In the year 2001, TIDE trained her in the construction of Sarala stove. She learnt the skill and assessed that such a stove is very relevant in rural homes. Women like her who suffered from smoke in the kitchen while cooking and spent a lot of time cleaning sooty vessels, could benefit by the stove. She also judged that she could earn a good income by building these stoves, while at the same time reducing the drudgery and health of women like her. With support from BAIF, she has constructed more than 1000 stoves in about three years and earned Rs. 50000/-. This income has helped to finance the education of her daughter, who has now completed TCH. Along with loans from her SHG, she has been able to buy cattle and sheep. She is also the proud owner of an acre of land, in which she cultivates ragi, jowar and mustard.

Lalithabai has earned the respect in the community and many women look up to her for inspiration, admiring the things she has achieved without the help of education! She has become an icon in her village and always leads from the front. A number of community based programmes sees her as an active and vocal participant. She has worked in the Swaccha Grama programme, is a member of the local milk co operative and of the welfare committee of her village. She participates in all stove construction training programmes of TIDE to motivate women to take up stove construction and achieve the level of empowerment that she has reached. She has been awarded the Woman Exemplar Award by CII in 2007.

Exhibit 1

TIDE Sarala Household Cook Stove

Features

* Can burn a variety of biomass fuels * Smoke-free working environment * Use of moulds for on-site stove construction with consistent dimensions that provide consistent performance * Durable with minimal maintenance * Compact, with low space requirement (Therefore, suitable even for small kitchens) * Easy to install and operate, no deviation in cooking practice * Conserves at least 25%-30% of bio-fuels as compared to open cooking

Exhibit 2

Survey of stove acceptance in 24 villages

Food zone Stoves Built Stoves in use (number)

Stoves in use (%)

Stoves not used

Households retaining traditional stoves

Ragi zone 1483 992 66.9% 491 624Rice zone 664 356 53.6% 308 444Jowar roti zone

1110 629 56.7% 481 623

Questions

1. Assume yourself in the shoes of Katyani and LalithaBai.

a. How would you fulfil the current order for 5500 smokeless stoves when your team in full capacity managed to install only 800 stoves in the past year?

b. How would you scale your business to cover multiple villages and replicate this model in other areas?

2. Assume you are the Director of TIDE. You have provided a cutting edge solution to the inhouse smoke problem through the SARAL stoves, but still the acceptance rate is not according to expectation. You have trained women like Katyani and LalithaBai to be local entrepreneurs and promote the installation of stoves but still the outreach is limited. How can you, using your resources at TIDE increase acceptance and maximize social impact?

This is a real case study and the participants are encouraged to go outside the case and supplement their solution with external verifiable information. In giving recommendations, if you are making a specific assumption, it has to be stated clearly and validated. The recommendations proposed for each question should not exceed 1000 words without exhibits. The entries shall be adjudged on following parameters:

1. Feasibility & Sustainability2. Innovativeness3. Social Impact4. Scalability5. Profitability