Apart from Hande, none of the employees are engineers. These centers are responsible for selling, customizing and installing units. While the packages sold will vary from house to house, a typical four-light, watt panel with a voltage battery costs around Rs.
That philosophy became clear when a farmer was thinking about ordering a four-light unit, until he found out the price. Now, every time a technician meets prospective customers, he will ask about their house and where the lights would be used. One daily-wage-earning widow wanted solar lights because she was staying up late with her daughters — despite having to rise early each morning — out of worry that they would burn themselves with the kerosene lights they lit to study in the evenings.
A farmer, meanwhile, wanted a solar light at his front door to keep his family safe from intruders. Whenever there was a knock on the door at night, he had to crank up his kerosene lamp for a few minutes to create enough light to see who was at the door.
SELCO designed solar headlamps for rose pickers, who used to get up at midnight to work so that their flowers would be in the markets before they wilted in the daytime heat.
Then there were the silk farmers, who used kerosene lamps to check on their worms at night despite the danger that a single drop of kerosene would kill the worms.
SELCO installed a solar light bright enough for the farmers to see, but not so intense that it would disturb the worms. He cites the case of a basket weaver, whose solar lights helped to increase her output.
There is no market linkage. Market linkage is a phrase Hande uses often to describe how he wants SELCO to address the entire supply chain surrounding a product. He once came across day laborers whose only sources of light at night were candles. When they got home from work, the laborers rolled bidis local cigarettes for extra money.
They told Hande that if they had more light to see, they could weave two or three baskets a night and sell them for Rs. When Hande asked if they would be willing to spend Rs. Not everyone sees eye to eye with Hande. The idea came from them, and we had tools to link them to the market…. There is enormous potential if you just look at the whole chain, find the weakest link and strengthen it. More often than not, the weak link is financial in nature.
We had to piggyback on a fantastic financial network in rural India. It took us three years. When Hande first got in touch with banks, however, they told him they could only finance income-generating activities, such as fuel and agriculture, within specific timeframes. For example, banks would lend to sugarcane farmers three times a year, peanut farmers four times a year and paddy farmers once a year. Bill Berg were the people who pushed me to change my thinking, from technology to the socio-economic aspect.
For his efforts and vision, Hande is among those from Asia who have been chosen to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines. Hande plans to use the cash award to provide capital to poor, young entrepreneurs and encourage them to replicate SELCO in different parts of India and the world. For an optimum web experience we recommend the latest version of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, or Safari.
Please use one of the links below to install a supported browser. To do this, SELCO pioneers links between technology, financing, energy services, income generation and quality of life. The company works with banks to structure innovative financing for customers. The user can also pay by generating extra income resulting from additional work made possible with the light and savings from eliminating costly fossil fuels with customized payment schedules.
Energy services have led to improvements in the quality of life for thousands of people, including better education outcomes for children who can now study at night. I accept.
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