Stories of Change in Rural India – It’s Happening!

I would like to share stories of three rural households that we (I and my teammates at Simpa Networks) visited in summer and how our solar solution made a visible impact in their daily lives.

Ameena Begum (The smart, outspoken family leader)

Customer #1: Ameena Begum (seated on chair) and her kids

Ameena’s husband is a milkman. They are daily wage earners with a small, but steady flow of income along with a small farmland that provides seasonal income from food crops. They have 4 young kids who are enrolled in the village school. Their house has two rooms (brick walls and roof) and an open space split into dining room, kitchen and washroom.

Ameena is a smart outspoken woman who is actively involved with a women empowerment NGO and is the decision-maker in house. She is an informal woman leader in village and is capable of rallying other households if she believes in a cause. For lighting needs, they used kerosene oil lamp at night during dinner. Kids were not able to study at all after dark. Also, they didn't use any fan. Their monthly energy bill was ~4$/month.

When we visited the family, they took keen interest in our solar solution. We explained them the benefits of clean energy and cost economics. They instantly agreed for installation. After couple weeks, we visited them again to understand how they were benefiting from it. Ameena shared that her kids are now able to study at night. She also uses one light as a night bulb. Her kids use fan entire day (10-12 hours), which is a no-brainer given the sweltering 110 F summer heat in UP. Additionally, Ameena is a big supporter of solar energy and actively spreads the word about it in the village. She actually helped us get 3 more customers in her village. Also, she helped us understand psyche of people in her village. She narrated how people in her village are afraid of government instalment schemes (solar energy solutions available on monthly payable instalments that user gets to own after 5-7 years) as they have had incidents of ‘sarkaari log’ (meaning government folks) taking away their belongings and livestock for non-payment of instalments.

Ameena and her kids understanding usage of solar lighting system from our technician

Girija Shankar (Young family bread earner)

Girija Shankar is a young farmer-cum-daily wage earner who supports 6 members, including his parents and family. He is in his early 20’s and has a small 1-acre farm. To boost earnings, he visits Lucknow city once every month for daily wage labor and stays there for 1-2 weeks (Note: Poor people like him stay under bridges or slums in cities to save rental costs and take home maximum earnings). He is the decision maker in house, but is also influenced by Village Pradhan who lives next door to his hut. His house has two rooms, one made of brick and another with thatched roof. His younger brother and uncle live next door in separate houses.

Customer #2: Girija Shankar

Their energy needs were fulfilled by kerosene oil lamp, similar to most poor farmers like him. They use lamp during supper and spend ~4$/month on energy. His story of using solar energy is bit unique. He saw his neighbours (the village Pradhan) use our solar lights and fan for a month, was very impressed by it and came running to us when we visited the village next time. In fact, he was in such dire need for a better energy solution that he started working more hours to afford our solar lighting and fan system. Once installed, his family’s happiness knew no bounds. Now, his parents use a night lamp at night and his wife and son enjoy the fan breeze in daytime (7-8 hours fan use). They also requested for an EVD-DVD player to watch religious CDs and listen to songs.

Girija Shankar's house (two rooms in the enclosure)

Front entrance to his house

Just for comparison, in summers, the temperature inside one of the rooms in his house (see left pic) can go as high as 116 F. We visited his house in July and started sweating in 30 seconds!! Once he got solar powered fan with our system, his wife and son (who usually stay indoors) were overjoyed and greeted us with black plums (‘jaamun’ in Hindi) on our next visit.

RamLakhen (Respected farmer in village)

RamLakhen is a farmer with 4+ acres of land possession. He lives with his wife and 6 kids (5 sons and a daughter). In his mid-30’s, RamLakhen is not much of a speaker and lives simple life. However, his wife is very smart and outspoken home-maker who leads discussions in family and plays an important role in every decision. They have good relations with villagers and everyone in their village respects the family.

Customer # 3: RamLakhen’s wife with kids

Before using solar, they were using kerosene lamp and a portable lead-acid battery that supported mini-led lights. They were already looking for a solar solution when they met us. Hearing the success story of our product from nearby villagers and live demonstration, they agreed for installation. They have a very progressive mindset as they thought of solar energy to help their kids study at night and avoid toxic fumes from kerosene oil. They also wanted to let their neighbors benefit from solar light. However, we couldn't do it as our light wires weren't long enough to go from point A to B in their large house.

They found an ingenious solution to the problem themselves. By erecting a 25 feet pole inside their house, they fixed the solar light at its top and put a plastic cover (supported by a slipper!) to protect it from rain. The pic below demonstrates their ‘jugaad’ solution.

Their own light tower!                                  Close-up view (notice the light protected by slipper/plastic)

Their family now doesn't use the soot-colored kerosene lamp anymore. In his wife’s own words, “Ab humne mitti ka tel istemaal karna chhod diya hai” meaning “Now we have stopped using kerosene oil for good after using your solar powered lights”.

These are among the many success stories that I saw through my journey with Simpa. To sum it up, I am now personally responsible for getting 200+ people out of using dirty kerosene oil. They have now more time to devote to their work and earn more money, their children get to study in daytime/night and their neighbors benefit too from bright lights. There is a significant environmental benefit as well. Collectively, these people have saved 1 ton of CO2 emissions in the last 3 months by quitting dirty kerosene and opting for clean energy.

These people have been living their entire life in sheer darkness. Yet, they took a bold step away from herd mentality to think about their own and family’s future by adopting clean energy. The hard fact is, the villages in which these people live are not known yet to government or local authorities. In web reports and government databases, their villages either don’t exist or are considered electrified. Moreover, we found hundreds of households like Ameena, Girija Shankar and RamLakhen who live in off-grid villages.

 

There could be many reasons why these villages are not reported – poor accessibility, political ignorance by state or weaker sense of community. Nevertheless, the message is clear. There are millions in India who need a better way than toxic kerosene to light up their homes. New government at the helm has recognized their needs and has announced a mission to electrify entire country by 2019. Social enterprises like Simpa, with their innovative business model and passionate entrepreneurs, are working tirelessly in rural areas to complete this mission.

Post and photos by Rahul Tapariya.

Unlocking the locked ones!

Place for solar in Indian energy sector

With an installed base capacity of ~250 GW (70% of which is fossil-fuel based power), India is building fast on its renewable power generation with wind holding the highest share as of today (8.6% of total installed base capacity). For a quick comparison, US power sector generates ~1050 GW power (4 times base capacity of India) for 1/4^th equivalent of Indian population.

Solar power currently holds a minuscule space (1%) in the country with 2.6 GW capacity. However, it has received a recent thrust on account of the National Solar Mission with a target of 22 GW in 2022 (20 GW on-grid and 2 GW off-grid)

Uttar Pradesh (UP hereafter) is the most populous state in India with nearly 200 million people. For comparison, this is equivalent to total population of Brazil squeezed in an area 35 times smaller than that of Brazil. 75% people in UP live in rural areas where there is either under-electrification (prolonged power cuts of anything ranging from 4 hours/day up to 18 hours/day) or zero electrification (so called Off-grid areas). Naturally, this is a breeding ground for social enterprises who are trying to reach these customers through multiple means of solar powered energy solutions. Simpa is one of such upcoming enterprise that promises clean, affordable electricity for a single home.

Need for Off-grid solutions

Needs of under-electrified customers are easier to understand and meet through solar energy solutions since they know the benefits of electricity and consider it as a necessity. Additionally, they suffer the pain of prolonged power cuts and constantly search for back-up methods of power like inverters or generator. Hence, scores of solar solutions have sprung up across the country to meet their needs. Simpa started its journey with under-electrified customers.

However, the real social need and business opportunity lies in off-grid areas where people don’t understand the importance of energy, let alone clean energy like solar power. Their USP though is that no-one has a holistic knowledge about their energy needs or WTP. The reason is simple enough – lack of direct accessibility to nearly 290 million such customers (30% of Indian population) who are spread all across the country and live primarily on agriculture related activities.

Hence, my internship start was ambiguous with never-before envisioned customer mindset. Imagine yourself talking to people who don’t view energy as a necessity, leave alone the importance of clean vs dirty energy source! Below are a couple of pics to give brief glimpse of their homes.

Customer #1

Customer #2

During the internship, my job was to build customer profile and unlock their barriers to adoption of solar energy. Also during the exercise, we had to arrive at the right pricing mechanism and delivery channel to reach and appeal to most of our customers. As part of the exercise, we decided a block (smaller area than a district and contains a population of ~4000-5000 households) as our testing ground. We further narrowed down the focus to a select group of villages to completely understand customer mindset and adoption barriers. Next phase was rapid prototyping and experimentation to unlock these barriers with new innovative experiments that would help Simpa gain instant trust and massive demand in off-grid villages.

My ride for nearly entire internship

Our travel to villages and glimpse of rural UP

Transportation is not easy as one tries to venture into villages from town settlements. Most of these villages do have motorable roads, although some don’t. We did visit a couple villages that were reachable only by two wheelers or by feet. For major part of our field work, this auto-rickshaw and it’s driver were a crucial part of our team. Together, we braved everything from hot winds of summer to cool showers of monsoon.

Sometimes, roads were motorable

Yet, sometimes, they were not!

As soon as we would reach any village, swarm of kids immediately surrounded our vehicle to get a glimpse of ‘what’s inside?’. Since our work required us to make repeat visits to same villages, people would instantly recognize the sole vehicle driving with 4 town folks and murmur ‘Saur urja wale aaye hain’ meaning “the solar guys are here”.

Night demonstrations were one of our powerful tools to get a better understanding of people. At night as we entered any village, we saw pitch-black darkness as people use kerosene oil inside their homes only for supper. Having nothing to do at night, they went to bed early. In these circumstances, doing a night demonstration was like a holy grail when we helped people compare their kerosene lamp with a bright solar-powered white light. There were occasionally issues of safety but none too severe to stop our work or research.

Me & our sales manager doing a night demonstration in a village

Fun moments

I started using local cotton garment that is typically wrapped around one’s head or shoulders to stay relatively cool in hot weather. Below is my pic where I tried to wear it as a turban. Culinary delights in villages were a fun experience that also helped beat the 116 F heat, at least for some time. Crushed ice with sugar syrup and boiled chickpeas with salt and onion were some of these delights that our team savored like premier delicacies. We also occasionally picked up fruits (mangoes and black plum) from trees by the way.

Yup, that was my avatar for 6-7 weeks of hot summer!

Peppermint oil was another exotic discovery that we made for heat relief. Farmers typically grow peppermint right after their sugarcane crop harvest in April and reap it by onset of monsoon. The oil contains copious amounts of menthol (used in our shampoo bottles or hair oil to add cooling effect) and only 2-3 drops of pure peppermint oil is enough to turn a bucket full of water into cool ‘mentholated’ water. Our field technician, who is a farmer himself, got us a small bottle of peppermint oil that we are using even until now to get a refreshing shower every morning (and evening/night).

Crushed ice with sugar 

Boiled chick peas garnished with onion and chillies at a road-side shop

How I unlocked my own potential:

Working at Simpa has been an enormous learning experience due to the fast-paced and exhaustive learning environment of a start-up venture. To say the least, I picked up the little habits of making a plan for next day (in writing). This little mundane activity saves a ton of time when on the field. To give an example, if we travel without a plan, I would end up being led by our sales manager to reach prospective customers. However, with a sketched out plan, we are able to get 30% more outcome from the day. Despite the factors like weather, unavailability of people, traffic jams or poor roads which are ‘typical’ working conditions in rural India, the little planning habit is a lifesaver.

Rapid prototyping and experimentation is another important learning. After talking to scores of villagers, their needs, beliefs and motivations, I designed several experiments to test the behavior, many of which were decided on-the-spot. Also, I was able to stretch my own capabilities. Combination of field work and brain storming did help increase amount of work done per day.

Another learning was that rural customers tell you openly if you do two things: (a) Give them analogies as much as possible and (b) Add jokes in between to help them open up. If customers are not giving information, we tried to inflate estimates. Then, they would instantly tell the right information. These sorts of rapid prototyping experiments were helpful to understand and speak to customers in their own language and in their own way.

A small activity of keeping a pen in pocket every day before leaving hotel helped a lot. Once out of hotel and into rural villages, it’s impossible to find potable water to drink, let alone other things. Additionally, it became extremely useful to jot down epiphanies during travel from one village to another. Last but not the least, the social impact achieved as a result of lighting up lives of 500+ people has left me a lot more humble and committed to do greater good for society.

I would like to end with a confession. This post doesn’t capture even 25% of the fun, learning and social impact that I have witnessed in the past couple months as there has been simply too much to absorb in a very short time. I do hope though that this is a starting point for anyone interested in energy, especially in rural solutions to gain some preliminary insights.

Post written and photos by Rahul Tapariya