Source & Image Courtesy: Youtube
Grass root Entrepreneurship
Ajaita Shah, the CEO of Frontier Markets who is also National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge grantee is making relentless efforts to provide solar technology products to villages in Rajasthan that are facing energy poverty. People in those villages, who have been so far deprived of electricity supply are going through a social transformation as they are being introduced to solar technology.
Ajaita working in villages of Rajasthan, partnering with brick and mortar retailers to sell solar technology products, including solar lanterns, streetlights and home lighting kits. She is also a microfinance expert has earlier worked on numerous development project across different states of India. She has consulted the World bank about microfinance in South Asia and Latin America.
Why is it significant?
Those of us who live in cities can barely manage to make both ends meet without electricity supply. We keep complaining about the power-cuts and how it cause frustration to us. But if viewed from a wider spectrum, the truth is that there are still millions of people in India, bereft of power supply.
Their life goes on in utter frustration, despair and hopelessness. Shah’s Frontier Markets teams up with local partner channels like microfinance institutions and field staff to reach out to households and educate them and provide them on high social impact, affordable products and customer service. The company is now working in villages of Rajasthan, partnering with brick and mortar retailers to sell solar technology products, including solar lanterns, streetlights and home lighting kits.
Women leading the way
They have also started a programme called Solar Saheli focusing on the women of those communities. These programme is transforming women into solar entrepreneurs as they sell these products and educate the large mass about solar technology. The initiative is slowly making progress in the villages of Rajasthan and helping people.
The Logical Indian community salutes this great initiative to provide electricity supply to people. Nowadays, electricity has become a basic requirement in life. But many parts of India is completely unable to access it. We request respective governments of every state to encourage and incentivize such initiatives so that people can meet basic electricity needs.
